How to: Upgrade 721 HD tutorial inside

[stonecold]

I take no credit for this as this was something a friend pass along, who is still part of the dark side. I have done this to 2 721 so far and have not had any issues what so ever.


Instructions:

1) Make a Norton Ghost 2002 boot disk. (There are other programs that will do bit for bit copying but Norton was the easiest for me here). If you use something else and it don’t work, I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’).

2) Set the Jumper(s) on the original hard drive so that the HDD is master and install it into your PC.

3) Set Jumper(s) on the hard drive to be cloned so that the HDD is slave and install it on the same IDE channel in the PC.
note: You can do the Original as Master on IDE1, and the Clone as Master on IDE2, but be CAREFUL NOT to kill your original HDD by overwriting the clone to it. Doing as outlined here makes it more ‘obvious’ as to what should be copied where… however, proceed at your own peril.

4) Make sure your computer CMOS is set to boot to the floppy first and boot the computer off the Ghost 2002 boot disk.

5) Once the program loads, go to the menu and quit or exit to DOS.

6) Re-execute Ghost from DOS but this time add the switch “/ir”. At the DOS prompt type: “ghostpe /ir”. This will allow Ghost to simply copy bit for bit on the clone rather than try to read the image on the original HDD as a valid FAT32 or NTFS.

7) When Ghost has loaded this time, open the menu and go to “Disk” and then “to Disk”.

8) Select the original hard drive as the source. (If you jumpered the original as the master it will be the top drive to select in the menu and will have a “Raw Image”)

9) Select the new hard drive as the destination and give her nuts.

10) This process will take about 45 minutes to clone an 80 gig hard drive depending on your computer speed.


Note the maxium size i been able to get the 721 to recongize is 137 gigs out of a 160gig drive.

[stone phillips]

will norton ghost 2003 work as well?

[stonecold]

I tried 04 as that was the copy that i had and could not get it to work right. The command lind arguements did not work on it so i think that is right. I would try wiht an old spare firs.t seen a 20 gig run a 721.

[P Smith]

If you will post how to install disk enclosure for make the disks removable, then the trick will be useful. Opening the box and messing with disconnection, reconnection cables will soon bring the PVR721 to totally useless status.

[stone phillips]

norton ghost 2003 worked perfect as well
thanks for the tip sc


maybe Bob H should try this and it may eliminate some of the problems hes having

[SimpleSimon]

If you will post how to install disk enclosure for make the disks removable, then the trick will be useful. Opening the box and messing with disconnection, reconnection cables will soon bring the PVR721 to totally useless status.If you have the eye-hand coordination of a 6 year old, it's a non-issue, but if you really care, get a cold swap drive bay.

[Bob Haller]

Honestly I am computer illeterate:( My skills are more users.

Have never tried to ghost image anything, and fear it would destroy the original drive, plus E checks for tampering:(

I have successfully upgraded hard drives and such, thats kinda fun:)

[stonecold]

I would like to remind, everyone that opening up your 721 does violate dish warranty. Though if your careful you can fool dish. But just like upgrades on the 7200 hd upgrades are not support. But this works.

I would do a mod on the 721 to add a external drive bay but it pretty pointless since we are not able to easily ripp content from the drives like the 50x units. or the 7x00 series.

[ibglowin]

Now the burning question in my mind what about upgrading a 921?

Man it would be great to put in a couple of 250GB drives in that thing!

[stonecold]

well I have have a 300 gig drive that I will pulling out of a die server of mine. I will try to get around to trying it with the 921 . Though, i know dual drives in the same unit like tivo allows to have does not happen in the 721 i tried.

[ibglowin]

well I have have a 300 gig drive that I will pulling out of a die server of mine. I will try to get around to trying it with the 921 . Though, i know dual drives in the same unit like tivo allows to have does not happen in the 721 i tried.

Cool, keep us posted if you have any sucess. No guts, no glory as they say!

[Allen Noland]

What brand of HD does the 721 use? Does it need to be a 5400RPM or 7200RPM drive? Anyone brave enough to try it on a 921?

[maddawg]

Dish will kill this pretty soon. Echostar has no interest in allowing users to upgrade their hd's. Too bad considering TIVO allows users to mod their boxes. More HD space would help tremendously. I would love if they allowed you to add a bigger HD.

[stonecold]

Yeah

maddawg is right. I would not do anything to your orginal 721 drives. Dish is gong to pull a stunt like they did with the 50x series you use to be able to put a bigger drive in there and then after a frimware upate it killed them off.

my 721's had segate drives in there from dish. I put in a 10,000 rpm 160 wd with 8 meg cache. Worked just fine.

[larrystotler]

The limit on the 721 is due to the 137GB limit of the ATA interface that it uses. It's like the 512MB/8.4GB/32GB limits. As the drive sizes increased, new controllers were needed. The 921 should have a new controller, so it should not be limited to the 250GB(I'm not sure where the current parallel spec tops out). My main question is whether the 721's controller can see more than 1 HD, which is on my list of things to do, since I can use Linux's LVM to make it look like 1 volume......that's my guess anyway. If I can get the LVM to load on the boot parition, you should be able to go way larger. Also, there are utilities in Linux that should be able to clone the drive. I will post the results when I know more.

Stonecold, what's the approximate recording time left when the drive is upgraded?

[ocnier]

Man, in this respect with regards to upgrades dish is being a bunch of real JackA@#'s!!!! There is no reason whatsoever to lay the smack down on customers who just want to "improve" Dish's product. Stonecold they should be thanking you not chastizing you. BTW goodluck with the 921!

[maddawg]

ocnier, totally agree with you. Look at dish history, they don't support user upgrades for one simple reason. They want to force customers to buy newer boxes with bigger harddrives. Yeah I know its dumb, but its echostar way of doing business.

[stonecold]

Larrystotler the whole point is ghost is the fact it will dod a bit to bit copy on and that copies the information that hackers want to see with out it beeing shown. See the drive has to format in the 721 after the bit for bit. As the drive is unreadable after ghosting. do to the xfs. But in the first 1024 they did copy the keys that you would normaly have to hack the box to get.

I did try two drives and it been a no go so far.


Dish has not chastizing me but I would expect to block this method in the 721.

But they might since it is a discontinued box.

But they did do it to the 50x series so i would suppect they would do it do the 721


921 update first attempt did not go anywhere it locked up turning on I left it alone for 2 hours and nothing. when i do it on the 721 it will turn on and format for a minute then go back to norma.l the 921 just kinda froze with a black screen.

[TomCat]

OK. That's cool.

But why would anyone other than a hobbyist who wanted to create a laboratory curiousity even attempt this? It seems like a relatively large commitment of time and effort for a limited, if not questionable, payoff.

Unmodified DISH PVRs can barely handle recording two SD streams at the same time, and even when they aren't they are significantly unstable compared to every other PVR that ever lived, and what stability they eventually get is usually after two years of pain for those who have already bought them. Even the brain trust at E* can't make a HD PVR that actually is good enough to belong on the market, so how could some Frankenstein 721 be worth even a casual shot by geek renegades? Even the best HD recorder on the market (Tivo) is having minor issues as a cutting-edge recorder, so I think the chances for having a high percentage of continued success with a one-off based on a 721 would be severely below that.

But I could be wrong, I wish anyone well who wants to try that, geek renegades are some of my favorite people on the planet, and I look forward to reading your horror stories along the way.

[lastmanstanding]

Stonecold,

Thanks for the post and all your great work. I never thought that 90 hours wouldn't be enough recording time, but well, it isn't. I have to run two 721s to keep my family happy. But you know, even with 500 channels, and 180 hours of archived shows, half the time I can't find anything I want to watch.

Any thoughts for high speed DVD dubbing from a 721?

LMS

[stonecold]

Tomcat....

Let me explain something to you. A long time ago I use to be one of those people who were disecting 200 dollar 2700s. I use to take about and figure out things about Dish network inners back when hacking satellite televsion was not about free televsion but about information. (long story short the hacking community which use to be a bunch of people who thought it was neat to under stand the inner workings. Anyway. that is no longer the issuve in that scene. )

But there curious spirit still sits with me today. So when friend who still practices the dark arts as I will call them, say hey found a way to put a bigger hd in the 721 I had to try it.

Tomcat, i guess you would ask why put a 120 gig drive in a 7200. I do it for space. Just like I did the 721. I noticed preformance gain by putting in the 160 gig 10000 rpm western digital with 8 meg cache. There is a difference. Just like I have avoided the famous 7x00 2 sec black out problem with a 120 western digital with 8 meg cache.

[Big Bob]

Unmodified DISH PVRs can barely handle recording two SD streams at the same time,

This has not been my experience. My unmodified 721 records two SD streams with ease.

Check out this thread (http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=2641) I started last year.

To sum this thread up, I am able to record 2 shows, watch two shows, have a game open and the weather application at the same time. That is far more than "barely handle recording two SD streams at the same time"

[Unthinkable]

This has not been my experience. My unmodified 721 records two SD streams with ease.

Check out this thread (http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=2641) I started last year.

To sum this thread up, I am able to record 2 shows, watch two shows, have a game open and the weather application at the same time. That is far more than "barely handle recording two SD streams at the same time"

I don't have 721 issues recording SD with both tuners either. Problems I notice right now are pretty nominal when it comes to current software bugs in the 721. Nothing that prevents me from enjoying watching live or recorded TV to a point where its incredibly annoying and distracting. Sometimes I'll witness a sporadic black screen displayed when changing channels and audio dropouts a few seconds in when playing back recorded programs. I've had the no menu display problem happen a few times. There was only one night though where reboots, card pulls, and power plug pulls wouldn't fix it and I had to wait until the next day for it to work properly again. That could be pretty annoying if it happened more frequently then it has so far in terms of setting timers. Sometimes caller ID doesn't popup or record the call info properly.

[Pepper]

But there curious spirit still sits with me today. So when friend who still practices the dark arts as I will call them, say hey found a way to put a bigger hd in the 721 I had to try it.

Tomcat, i guess you would ask why put a 120 gig drive in a 7200. I do it for space. Just like I did the 721. I noticed preformance gain by putting in the 160 gig 10000 rpm western digital with 8 meg cache. There is a difference. Just like I have avoided the famous 7x00 2 sec black out problem with a 120 western digital with 8 meg cache.

I too am the curious type, who wants to understand how it works and what can I do to make it work better. That's why I subscribed to the dishmod group at yahoogroups. Reading the daily message digest is good to find out what people are doing as far as drive upgrades on the 50x machines. I aspire to be a "hacker," the old definition before it was corrupted, the correct term for the thieves I think is "cracker"

Anyway. I also have experienced the space problem of usually having < 3 hours available space and nothing we want to watch right now (since my 721 was about 87 hours old), but nothing we want to delete either. Being able to build a few copies of the drive and have them available to swap in for more space is quite useful. I will be making it my mission to see if such an operation is possible with the 522 in the near future.

Dish may decide to (or may already have in the case of the 522) implement a specific list of drives that are supported by the firmware, in which case this becomes difficult but not impossible. As long as ghost does a bit-level copy, then any clone of a working drive to identical hardware should work fine, right?

[Inaba]

I put in a 10,000 rpm 160 wd with 8 meg cache.

Not trying to nitpick, but the above quote is a load of hooey.

10,000 rpm ATA drives in the 160 GB variety do not exist. They max out at 74GB.

If you want 10k rpm and > 74GB, it's Ultra SCSI all the way, of which the 721 certainly has no interface for.

[TomCat]

This has not been my experience. My unmodified 721 records two SD streams with ease...That is far more than "barely handle recording two SD streams at the same time"

You're correct. I probably explained my point clumsily, and to say that a 721, for instance, regularly has such problems is probably no longer accurate. My 721 rarely has such issues anymore, but it still does on occasion.

The point I really was trying to make was it took about a year and a half before such stability was common, which is the same sort of pattern every other DISH recorder has shown as well. A good percentage of those who bought 501's or 7200's when they first came out have horror stories they can relate. I won't bore you with mine.

And if it takes that sort of maturity for a DISH recorder to become reliable, I would imagine that one guy tinkering in his basement can't expect much better success.

I don't have the time or patience to take on something like this, but it still makes me feel good that folks like Stonecold do.

[ajohnson]

I put in a 10,000 rpm 160 wd with 8 meg cache.
Not trying to nitpick, but the above quote is a load of hooey.

10,000 rpm ATA drives in the 160 GB variety do not exist. They max out at 74GB.

If you want 10k rpm and > 74GB, it's Ultra SCSI all the way, of which the 721 certainly has no interface for.

I was just going to ask about this. I've been watching the Raptor drives for quite a while, waiting for them to pass 74gb, and it hasn't happened that I can see. I'm assuming he used the WD1600JB Caviar 7,200 rpm drive, which is still a good drive.

[stonecold]

you are correct they are 7200 drives. I was thinking about a a pair of 36 gig raptors i have in another machine.

here is the drive, just 160 not 250 http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=42

[veith]

Staples has SystemWorks 2005 for free after rebates. I bought a copy and don't see support for command line or, for that matter, making a boot floppy. It comes with a boot cd instead.

Anyone have any luck with Ghost 2005 yet?

Best regards,
Charles

[Big Bob]

somewhere, (sorry, don't remember where) I recall that Ghost 2005 is a completely different program than previous versions of Ghost. Symantics bought a competitor who had a disk copying program, tweaked it a bit and called it Ghost 2005.

I may have this completely wrong thought. Anyone know if this is true or not?

[veith]

somewhere, (sorry, don't remember where) I recall that Ghost 2005 is a completely different program than previous versions of Ghost. Symantics bought a competitor who had a disk copying program, tweaked it a bit and called it Ghost 2005.

I may have this completely wrong thought. Anyone know if this is true or not?

I wouldn't doubt it. I swore off Symantec last year but couldn't keep off the wagon. I'm very disapointed. I bought it only for the utilities and to be able to replace a drive in my 721. I also activated the antivirus program, but find I don't like it nearly as well as Avast (free).

Meanwhile, what about Linux? I swear I read someone was going to look into a bit for bit copy program under Linux and was going to ask that poster directly, but for the life of me I can't find it now.

Best regards,
Charles

[Cholly]

somewhere, (sorry, don't remember where) I recall that Ghost 2005 is a completely different program than previous versions of Ghost. Symantics bought a competitor who had a disk copying program, tweaked it a bit and called it Ghost 2005.

I may have this completely wrong thought. Anyone know if this is true or not?
Symantec bought PowerQuest, publishers of Partition Magic, amongst other products. AFIK, Ghost 2005 is an upgrade of prior versions, not a relabled PowerQuest product.

[larrystotler]

Meanwhile, what about Linux? I swear I read someone was going to look into a bit for bit copy program under Linux and was going to ask that poster directly, but for the life of me I can't find it now.

That would be me. I haven't had time to mess with it yet, but I hope to have time here before the first of the year. I'm pretty sure it can be done.

Stonecold - I had asked before if the 721 reported a different total for the number of hours left? With the almost 10% increase in size from 120 to 137 GB, I would assume it may report up to 100 hours. I wish I could get some more tech specs on the 721s MD because it is basically PC based, and there is a change that you could actually run the drive in a computer. It would be awesomw if E* had a DVB card for a PC like a lot of the european sat providers..... :(

[bfallona]

I have a 501 that started acting up so I got a new 811. I have a bunch of sports stuff and Red Sox stuff on my old 501 HD that I would like to copy. I have a dvd burner on my computer. I can't see the PVR guide on the 501 so can I take the HD out and hook it up to my computer? I joined Dishmod at Yahoo and DL'd the explorer programs, but they seem hard to use. Any other way to extract the videos? :(

[SimpleSimon]

I assume you also joined Dishrip. That's it. That's all there is.

[jgoggan]

So -- you mentioned that you did see a performance increase after doing this? Basically, I'm most interested in what that 8MB cache might help.

Basically, on my 721, if I'm recording 2 shows (or even 1 show sometimes), the interface can get quite slow. I hit the Guide button, for example, and it takes a few seconds to pop up (when it normally is almost instant). I've always attributed this to poor disk performance, although that is just an assumption/guess.

I'm wondering if a drive with a nice 8MB cache might help with such things...

- John...

[kenyarnall]

Meanwhile, what about Linux? I swear I read someone was going to look into a bit for bit copy program under Linux and was going to ask that poster directly, but for the life of me I can't find it now.


Linux comes stock with a command line tool that can make bit-for-bit copies of devices. I used to use it regularly to copy hard drives when doing lab-wide installs.

The command is called "dd". Probably the easiest thing to do is download an ISO of the fedora core 3 rescue CD (you don't need the whole shebang). Plug both disks in to your IDE controller, and issue a command like, boot from the rescue CD, and execute

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M

Where bs=1M sets a buffer size (the "perfect" size is hard to determine), if=/dev/hda sets the disk to input from, and of=/dev/hdb sets the disk to write to. This command copies all bits from one disk to the other.

I'm leaving it up to the reader to determine what your IDE drives are called depending on how you plug them in. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be messing with this technique... :nono:

(googling a bit can fill you in)

Ken

[veith]

Linux comes stock with a command line tool that can make bit-for-bit copies of devices. I used to use it regularly to copy hard drives when doing lab-wide installs.

The command is called "dd". Probably the easiest thing to do is download an ISO of the fedora core 3 rescue CD (you don't need the whole shebang). Plug both disks in to your IDE controller, and issue a command like, boot from the rescue CD, and execute

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M

Where bs=1M sets a buffer size (the "perfect" size is hard to determine), if=/dev/hda sets the disk to input from, and of=/dev/hdb sets the disk to write to. This command copies all bits from one disk to the other.

I'm leaving it up to the reader to determine what your IDE drives are called depending on how you plug them in. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be messing with this technique... :nono:

(googling a bit can fill you in)

Ken

Thanks a million, you really made my day. I used to be a unix administrator years ago and only recently got into linux for fun. As time went on I became more fed up with windows defense and housekeeping; from viruses and spyware to file fragmentation. It was taking way too much time and effort. Meanwhile I found myself enjoying linux more and more, especially the configurability and freedom. So now, at home I'm about 90% linux and 10% windows.

Geez, I used dd command only a few weeks ago and should have remembered, but didn't until you enlightened me.

Many thanks,
Charles

[jgoggan]

It is kinda funny that the 721 has been out for so long and this information is just coming to light. I mean, with all of the hassles with changing HDs in the 50x units, you'd think someone would have tried this trivial method in a 721. One of the most common questions when people want to do the 50x HD swaps is "Why can't I just do a disk image to a large disk?" -- which simply doesn't work on those units.

So, it's funny that such an easy method works on the 721 units! I should have tried it a year ago! heh...

- John...

[stonecold]

So -- you mentioned that you did see a performance increase after doing this? Basically, I'm most interested in what that 8MB cache might help.

Basically, on my 721, if I'm recording 2 shows (or even 1 show sometimes), the interface can get quite slow. I hit the Guide button, for example, and it takes a few seconds to pop up (when it normally is almost instant). I've always attributed this to poor disk performance, although that is just an assumption/guess.

I'm wondering if a drive with a nice 8MB cache might help with such things...

- John...

The 8 meg cach western digitals, seem to help alot in 7x00s. in the 721, it helps with my problem when recording once channel while watching another, it would just seem to birng the video up very slowly. it helped there. But mostly in the 7x00 have i noticed the difference.

[larrystotler]

Actually, if you do a search, there are numerous threads from last year discussing mods to the 721. But it seems to have dies out because of the fact that the 721 uses an encryption scheme and everyone was whining about the DMCA.

[jgoggan]

Yes, but I think most of the encryption scheme worries are related to people wanting to pull the data off -- to "rip" the movies from the drive as people do with the 50x units.

That isn't the case here -- we're not really doing anything except doing a drive-to-drive transfer and then letting the 721 itself re-prepare the drive. Shouldn't be any DMCA issues there.

As for "whining about the DMCA" -- more people should. It's a horribly written and overly vague law that needs to be eliminated.

- John...

[larrystotler]

Actually, it's worse than that. Even tho E* uses a GPL'd Linux, they can say that if you modify it in ANY way, you could be violating the DMCA. ANd I totally agree with you on the DMCA. It's the worst thing to happen to fair use in a long time. That why I use Linux. On my desktop, on this laptop, on my macs..................

[stonecold]

Yes but you are forgetting one thing. the gpl also states that any changes a party makes aka ( echostar) can be put under a different more restrictive software license. and that only the orginal non alter code that is left needs to remain gpl and open source.

Soe yes breaking into dish linux could be a violataion of the dmca.

[larrystotler]

Actually, the problem would be breaking into any part of the system that is not GPL'd. The actual OS and utilities they cannot restrict you from. Only from their modifications to the base system, and they have to post a list of what they modified and what is not modified to comply with the GPL........So setting up the 721 as a webserve if the webserver software is on the system or added by you is ok. But cracking the encryption is not.

[jgoggan]

Actually, the problem would be breaking into any part of the system that is not GPL'd. The actual OS and utilities they cannot restrict you from. Only from their modifications to the base system, and they have to post a list of what they modified and what is not modified to comply with the GPL........So setting up the 721 as a webserve if the webserver software is on the system or added by you is ok. But cracking the encryption is not.

Logically, yes, that makes sense. But we're referring to the DMCA here. It has nothing to do with GPL or not -- we're not talking about violating or not violating the licensing agreement as far as modifications go. Under the DMCA, almost any modification to anything could fairly easily be considered a DMCA violation.

So, yes, setting up the 721 as a webserver would likely have lame lawyers arguing that it in some way aids in copyright infringement. With the DMCA, it isn't that difficult to argue, unfortunately.

- John...

[Pepper]

So where can one get the GPL portion of the 721 code to look at?

[stonecold]

So where can one get the GPL portion of the 721 code to look at?
to see the gpl version of the kernel code dish directs you to kernel.org

[Blademan]

It is kinda funny that the 721 has been out for so long and this information is just coming to light. I mean, with all of the hassles with changing HDs in the 50x units, you'd think someone would have tried this trivial method in a 721. One of the most common questions when people want to do the 50x HD swaps is "Why can't I just do a disk image to a large disk?" -- which simply doesn't work on those units.

So, it's funny that such an easy method works on the 721 units! I should have tried it a year ago! heh...

- John...I did ask a few months ago when I got my 721, and all the reponses were that it was not possible.

[Blademan]

The limit on the 721 is due to the 137GB limit of the ATA interface that it uses. It's like the 512MB/8.4GB/32GB limits. As the drive sizes increased, new controllers were needed. The 921 should have a new controller, so it should not be limited to the 250GB(I'm not sure where the current parallel spec tops out). My main question is whether the 721's controller can see more than 1 HD, which is on my list of things to do, since I can use Linux's LVM to make it look like 1 volume......that's my guess anyway. If I can get the LVM to load on the boot parition, you should be able to go way larger.Not necessarily. The lba48 can be required for the BIOS to recognize the full size of the drive, but it's also in software.

I have 2 PCs, 1 with WinXPproSP2 and the other with Suse9.2 with drives larger than >137GB. Neither PC's BIOS sees the larger drives.
I also have a DTivo with 160GB+250GB upgraded with PTV's upgrade disk (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html) with a recent Linux kernel (newer than 2.4.20) to recognize the whole drive.

[Blademan]

ocnier, totally agree with you. Look at dish history, they don't support user upgrades for one simple reason. They want to force customers to buy newer boxes with bigger harddrives. Yeah I know its dumb, but its echostar way of doing business.Ridiculous. Tivo has received so much good will for their efforts. As long as you don't steal service, Tivo doesn't care. We have upgraded drives, added webservers, and too many other features. Books have been written. (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/tivohks/)

And the net result? I am a die hard Tivo fan and advocate. At a point where many people refer to any DVR as a "Tivo," I describe and advocate the differences. Tivo is the reason why I bought a 721.

Companies die for that kind of brand loyalty. Dish Network would be stupid to ignore or make our modifications more difficult.

[larrystotler]

Not necessarily. The lba48 can be required for the BIOS to recognize the full size of the drive, but it's also in software.

I have 2 PCs, 1 with WinXPproSP2 and the other with Suse9.2 with drives larger than >137GB. Neither PC's BIOS sees the larger drives.
I also have a DTivo with 160GB+250GB upgraded with PTV's upgrade disk (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html) with a recent Linux kernel (newer than 2.4.20) to recognize the whole drive.


Correct, there are ways around it. However, you must have the hardware support in the kernel for it to work, and you have to keep in mind that any attempt to modify the base install on the 721 ends up having the software re-installed, and any changes you made go away. I haven't had time to go through what is in the box yet, but it's on my list of things to do. Also, you have to have your /boot directory or partition on linux under the 137GB limit or it will not boot properly when using the override.

[larrystotler]

Ridiculous. Tivo has received so much good will for their efforts. As long as you don't steal service, Tivo doesn't care. We have upgraded drives, added webservers, and too many other features. Books have been written. (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/tivohks/)

And the net result? I am a die hard Tivo fan and advocate. At a point where many people refer to any DVR as a "Tivo," I describe and advocate the differences. Tivo is the reason why I bought a 721.

Companies die for that kind of brand loyalty. Dish Network would be stupid to ignore or make our modifications more difficult.

Yes, but you also have to realize that as more pressure is put on TiVo to stop people from being able to have their fair use rights, they may be forced to send out a s/w update that will cause all the "hacked" boxes to stop functioning properly. And, TiVo provides no support whatsoever after you have opened the receiver, so while they are not condeming what people are doing, they are not blessing it either. TiVo has been around a lot longer than E*'s DVRs, and more people have had more time to modify them. Also, the E* DVRs cost a good deal more than most TiVos and until recently, a lot of people were unwilling to hack them for fear of screwing up an expensive piece of equipment. E*'s DVRS are much more hardware type dependent than TiVos as well, especially in the case of the 5xx series.

Personally, I despise the TiVo interface. I now have a D*TiVo, and I am not impressed.