How-to: Use your TiVo Series3 eSATA port to add an external drive

Ever wish you could use that friggin eSATA port TiVo taunts you with on the back of your Series3? If so your moment has finally arrived -- and not a moment too soon for many a DVR-loving TV fans whose drives are filled to the brim with HD programming. Best of all: you don't even have to crack open your box or nothin'. Ready to get it going on? Let's upgrade that TiVo.

Before we get started, be forewarned that this hack supposedly only works on unmodified TiVo Series3 units. Not that we have any idea how the machine knows whether it's been upgraded (we had a how-to for upgrading your internal drive, too), but supposedly if you upgraded your internal drive, this isn't going to work. (If you want to try anyway, let us know in comments how you fared.)

Equipment

• TiVo Series3 (and remote, duh) running 8.1.1 software
  and...
• eSATA enclosure + drive with eSATA cable
  or...
• SATA drive with external power source and eSATA to SATA cable

Directions
This is a fairly easy procedure, so we'll run through the steps.

Power down your TiVo.

Connect your eSATA gear. If you're going to use a straight up bare drive (which we don't suggest), make sure you've got some kind of power source for it.

Turn on your drive, and while you're powering on your TiVo, hold down the pause button. Make sure you keep your remote aimed at your TiVo the whole time!

Keep holding it. The front panel lights turn off, then the orange LED will light up. Now you can go ahead and let go of the pause button; then punch in "62" on your remote. (Apparently this maneuver is called "kickstart 62".)

You'll then reboot, and some bidness starts happening.

Did it work? If so you'll get the screen above. (Sorry about the overscan that cut off the text.)

Boom, now you've got more space! More friggin space, just like that! It's a TiVo miracle. For reference, we took this virgin 250GB Series3 unit up to 370GB with a 120GB 2.5-inch laptop drive in an eSATA enclosure (see above). Besides going to your TiVo's system info, you won't be able to see that you got more space or have a second drive running.

Other bits

If you pull the drive while the unit is still on you'll get the lengthy error message above. Basically you have to either turn the TiVo off, reconnect the drive, and turn it back on, or continue on in single-drive mode, as you were before.

Be forewarned, though! It looks like the Series3 may record simultaneously to both drives (drive-pooling), so if your drive dies or gets pulled, the error states you may lose shows. In other words, don't pull the drive if you don't absolutely have to!

Apparently this technique has been verified up to 1TB total storage -- anyone with a massive eSATA array want to take the plunge and see if we can get a few terabytes of TiVo going on up in here? Leave it in comments.

We didn't have a chance to run some tests on the programs stored on the secondary drive, but let us know if you see anything worthwhile.

Finally, big ups to spike2k5 on TiVo Community who pioneered this technique. Now go forth and expand.

[(Unverified) Posted May 16th 2007 5:18AM]

That is helpful. Thank you. Here is a page with a whole bunch of TiVo and DVR mods and hacks that are cool too.
http://www.satellitesweeper.com/hacking-tivo-and-dvr.htm

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 8th 2007 5:27PM]

Thank you so much! 131 HD hours, or 1244 SD hours thanks to you,a Seagate 750G, and a stock series 3 300HD

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 26th 2007 6:16PM]

I have just installed and tested a "budget friently" 1TB do-it-yourself eSATA solution with my Series 3 Tivo and can confirm that it works beautifully

Total Price = $347 + shipping

I used:
A Thecus N2050 eSATA Raid 0 enclosure which holds 2 drives ($129 and a high quality eSATA II cable included)
found here: http://www.xpcgear.com/n2050ud.html

and 2 500GB Maxtor QuickView drives @ $109/ea (rebranded Seagate DB35) which are certified for 24/7 operation and DVR optimized
found here: http://www.computergiants.com/items/one_item.asp?part=120805&cat=5&subsubcat=1568

Total Price to add 1TB of additional storage to your Series 3 Tivo: $347 + shipping

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 4th 2007 10:16AM]

did anyone post if you have to format the drive or can you just attach it and go?
wilhouse

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 4th 2007 6:44PM]

Mark, don't format or partition the drive. I think that confuses the tivo (if I remember correctly). It's critical that you use raw, unformatted drives only.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 31st 2007 5:08PM]

Jason

I recently bought two Series 3 TIVO units and want to add more recording time. I see that you bought a enclosure that handles two harddrives. Can I place two 750tb drives or two 1tb drives in it and will it work?

Hello from Saint Helens Oregon

[e-mail]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 1st 2007 11:05PM]

Hello Pat =)
Unfortunately, that will not work. The Tivo series 3 can only handle 1TB of esata external storage. If you did make an external drive with 1.5 or 2 TB the tivo just won't recognize it. However, you might check the prices for the 1TB single drives. They might be cheaper than 2 drives and a raid enclosure now. I only used two 500GB drives because they were cheaper back then. By the way, I haven't had to delete a thing in 3 months. I have literally thousands of shows... more than I can ever watch. Anyway, good luck pat. remember not to format the drives as it will confuse the tivo and cause it not to recognize them =) Let me know if I can offer any more advice.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 7th 2007 3:07PM]

The laugh is on you if you want to watch any premium content. If you just watch Dr. Phil and Lost, then you're all set with MythTv. What an appropriate name, BTW. :-)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2007 10:14PM]

I just added a 750gb Seagate FreeAgent Pro to my Series 3 Tivo. What I did was:

powered down the Tivo (which is running 8.3)

plugged connected the Tivo to the FreeAgent Pro with an esata cable

Powered up the FreeAgent Pro

Powered up the Tivo while holding the pause button (as instructed by Spike2k5 - Thank you!)

When the lights went off I keyed in 62 on the remote

The behavior under 8.3 is a little different than described.

It sits on the "Almost there" screen for a couple of minutes then reboots itself at which point the "Your second drive" screen comes up.

Then it finishes booting and that's it.

Showing 131 hours HD and 1,243 hours standard on the system info screen.

The 750gb FreeAgent external esata drive is $239 at Frys (at least, that's what it was at the Woodridge Illinois store, today).

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 11th 2007 8:14AM]

I added a Seagate ST3500601XS-RK 500GB eSATA External Hard Drive to my TIVO 3 using the hack described in this thread. The hack worked fine. However, the TIVO seems to write to both drives when recording a single program and on playback of most recordings, there is a 2 to 3 second pause in the middle of the program while the TIVO switches drives. Are any others seeing this. -- Howard

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 10th 2007 8:53AM]

I figured out my problem. My TIVO 3 was relatively new when I added the second drive, and the internal drive still had space on it to add additional recordings. For whatever reasons, the TIVO wrote individual recordings to both drives and paused when switching from one to another on playback. I disconnected the second drive about a week ago because I didn't like the pausing. The other day I noticed that my first drive had filled and old programs were being deleted when new ones were added. So, I tried again with the second drive and it now works fine.

-- Howard

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 27th 2007 8:42PM]

Cool! version 8.3.1 TiVo HD

Up to 85 HD hours or 800 SD hours.

300GB SATA drive and eSATA enclosure for $80.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2007 4:28PM]

Purchased the Tivo Series 3 HD DVR (TCD652160) yesterday at Circuit City. Works beautifully with dual cable cards. I tried to expand the capacity beyond the 20-hour HD capacity using the instructions above, but without success.

Used an eSATA cable, with Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB drive (ST307504FPA1E2-RK).

Any suggestions on how to get this rig working would be appreciated.

Any suggestions?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 30th 2007 2:35PM]

Just got the $299 Tivo Series 3 at Circuit City, Has anyone succeeded at installing an external esata drive........I'm also having problems, blank screen, when trying to get to online features like Yahoo Pictures and Yahoo Weather.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 31st 2007 6:31PM]

Hi! Just wanted to thank TerabyteTivo for the explaination on the TIMING of when to type "62". I have been banging my head against the wall for 2 hours trying to figure this one out.

Here are the problems I went thru trying to get my FreeAgentPro 750 attached (it is now attached and working fine).

The first and most obvious is that it does not come with the proper cable. I ordered this from NewEgg.

Definitely had to trim it down. it was a LinkDepot e-sata round blue cable. Just shy of making the connections. I had to trim it on both ends, but this was easy using a serrated kitchen knife.

I knew I had a good connection, because during the "installation" process for the kickstart 62, I had MANY false installations. When I powered down the Tivo, the yellow light on the seagate would go dim.

Long story short, what drove me mad was the timing process in the tivo software version 8.3, and how it differs from the original 8.1 instructions.

Here is how it goes:

Hold down the Pause, and keep holding it until all of the lights go out, except for the orange. Keep holding pause for 2-3 more seconds just to make sure. Next hit 62. The unit will continue to load, but then will restart around the same time it would typically say "ready.set.tivo" on the front. This is a good thing.

Next you will wait about 3 minutes during the power-up process before you get the HD screen. It took about another 3 minutes on this screen and everything was fine, with heaps of storage.

I hope this helps at least SOMEONE from pulling out their hair for 2.5 hours like me. Thank goodness I had patience, and my wife was away at class so she didn't hear my creative swearing.

Take care, and thanks again TerabyteTivo.

Best,

Brett

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2007 8:31PM]

Thanks, Brett!! The time you spent writing your note saved me two or more hours of sore forehead and sore throat!

Same setup, version 8.3.1, Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750Gb, same cable too.

First two times TiVo acted like nothing was different. Then I shaved the ends of my cable using a Buck knife, tried again, twice, same deal. Swearing, etc. Then I *finished* reading your entry and timed the entering of 62. For whatever reason, that didn't work first time around but it did the second time around, thank GOD!

So thanks again for the post! Yay 132 hours of HD!

Now we just need a way to use our Series 3s with either cable or satellite...

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 20th 2007 2:05AM]

Hey, I also lost 2+ hours, but I think in the end it was that I disconnected the *ethernet* cable at boot! Brett's problem was otherwise getting too familiar... :(

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 5th 2007 6:43PM]

I appreciate Brett's comments. I still have not been able to get this to work. I am beginning to feel sad... No, that's not true. I am feeling sad.

The process goes fine as far as I can tell clear up to the point where I enter 62. 45 seconds later it restarts but I never see the "added hard drive" screen.

Here's what I've done:
I've held the pause button for an extra couple of seconds once the amber light is the only one on.
I have been sure to not hesitate between pressing the 6 and the 2.
I have fresh batteries in the remote.
I have moved my drive as far away from the other electronic gear as its 3 foot length will allow. I have connected the FAP drive to my laptop and seen it come up (NTFS).
I have pushed the cables into their receivers as hard as they'll go and they feel snug. I am using a Tripp Lite cable as recommended on one of these discussion boards.
I have tried two different drives.
-a Seagate 750GB in a coolgear enclosure
-a Seagate FAP 750
I am on my fourth esata cable.

I have settled on this combo of hardware:
FAP750
Tripp Lite esata cable (# P950-36I)
My S3 TiVo running 8.3.1

Two things haunt me...
1) Should I reformat the FAP drive? (I suspect it doesn't matter since the Tivo reportedly formats the drive automatically)
2) I *did* get the coolgear hardware to work briefly but with many crashes. I ultimately quit using that set up in favor of the FAP. Do I need to go back to using that enclosure instead of the FAP750?

Any thoughts? Am I just a jinxed user?

Despairingly,
Dan

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 20th 2007 10:22AM]

I'm drooling at the thought of quickly adding MORE storage to my brand new HD Tivo.

Do you have to do the 62 thing EVERY TIME the Tivo boots or just the first time to pair the drive?

Many thanks,
Craig

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 22nd 2007 5:24PM]

I've been having a helluva time trying to find out if this hack works on TiVo HD; anyone know whether it's supported or have links to resources that might know?

What are you favourite TiVo resources online? I've found tivolovers.com; what else do folks like?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 28th 2007 5:58PM]

Well, I bought a FreeAgent Pro 750GB and connected to my new TiVo Series3 with a 1-meter round blue eSATA cable (Link-Depot) but could not get it to work until I shaved 1-mm off each eSATA connector on my blue cable with a sharp apring knife.

After repeated the 62 reboot sequence several times (once fixing the display by having to tinker with the TiVo HDMI connector to straighten a single tiny pin) (WTF?) it says it has 141 hours of HD space now and the FreeAgent lights up nicely.

Good Luck to all.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 4th 2007 3:04PM]

Jason

Thank you for the information, I will look at pricing of two drives versus one 1tb single drive. I have two rebate checks coming from TIVO and that should help. How is the noise level using two drives? I have one TIVO in the bedroom and noise is a problem.

Pat

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 4th 2007 8:56PM]

Well, these drives (2 500Gb maxtor quickview drives) are almost completely silent. When you first turn the enclosure on (normally it should never be turned off, as that would crash the tivo) you can hear just a tiny tick as they are initialized, but then... nothing.

Actually, they're designed that way. Any "Designed for DVR" drive will be silent and is meant to be run 24/7 like a server drive. It's a pain to find DVR certified drives, but they're worth it in the long run with higher reliability and silent operation.

Designed for DVR drives include:
The Maxtor QuickView and Seagate DB35 product line:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/consumer_electronics/db35_series

The Hitachi Cinemastar product line:
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.9895eda29d097d05e85c1a70eac4f0a0/


Also, a word of caution: The Maxtor Quickviews that I have were running REALLY HOT in that thecus raid enclosure. I mean like 85 degrees celcius hot. I took the lid off the enclosure and put a fan blowing directly on the drives and they did not cool down at all. I Don't know if that is normal for the drives to run that hot, but I didn't feel confortable with that temperature. I ended up pressing a 235W peltier cooling unit on the front of the two drives, and some ram heatsinks on the hard drive chipsets. Now, the drives are running at 16 degrees C and I feel like my media is safe.

I really can't imagine seagate designing a drive to operate at that temperature as it would shorten the life of ANY dvr it was installed in and they'd never be able to sell the things to OEM manufacturers. I'm thinking that the Thecus enclosure is the culprit. It might not be compatible with DVR drives.

If I were you, I'd get a single drive if possible. But if you want a full 1TB, then the Hitachi 7K1000 cinemastar is your only choice. I think they're going for about $270 right now. But honestly, it might be the better choice long term.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2007 12:26PM]

Hi,

I have a series 3 lite and I am not able to get to the kickstart code enter part.

I reset the DVR with the "Message and Settings"->"Restart or Reset System"->"Restart the TiVo HD DVR"

When it puts up the "Powering up Tivo" message, I pull the power cable from the Tivo. I then plug in, make the connections and power up the eSATA drive. Once this is done, I reconnect the power cable to the Tivo and let it power up. I am holding down the pause button on the remote close to the IR receiver on the box, but I never get to the orange LED only. It simply powers up as before.

Am I doing something wrong to kickstart 62? I am using a trimmed cable. Could that have something to do with the kickstart process? I thought the kickstart process should work regardless. Has anyone else tried this with series 3 lite? I see a couple of earlier comments, but no responses.

I am using a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500 GB with an eSATA I cable trimmed.

Thanks!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 6th 2007 4:11AM]

Will the external hard drive addition work with the less expensive machine with an esata port on the back, the Tivo HD? Thanks

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 7th 2007 12:28PM]

I'm afraid I'm in the same boat as Dan. I have connected a Freeagent Pro 750 and gone through the recommended procedure more times than I like to remember. All works as per instructions, enter the '62' but no joy...reboots normally without recognizing the new drive.

Dan, did you come up with any solution?

Al

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 21st 2007 10:32PM]

I finally managed to get my Series 3 to add a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750. The problem I encountered was a cabling problem - cutting down the rubber boot on the cable allowed the cable ends to set properly.

A couple of things to help debug: 1) If the system reboots at least once after you enter the 62 kickstart, you managed to enter it correctly - that's not the problem. 2) If you're using a FreeAgent (or other pre-packaged eSata drive), I noticed that once I corrected the cabling problem, the drive light dimmed during the reboot - it didn't dim before I fixed the cable.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 23rd 2007 4:26PM]

Has there been a definitive 'yes', it works with a Tivo HD-DVR? (the series 3 lite?)

I spent extra to get a Seagate 750GB NL (couldn't find a DB35 locally) and I've had no luck in getting the system to recognize the drive. The cable coming with the enclosure (Ultra) looks to be a quality item and it doesn't seem to have extra plastic preventing a secure connection.

Also, if someone did manage to get a drive to work with the lite, I'd appreciate any info on the LEDs. Based on reading of above instructions I think the light arrangement is different between the two models -- any maybe my interpretation of the instructions does not match with my setup.

Thanks to all!
Steve

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 1:49PM]

I'm having similar problems. I get the LED to go from green to orange and red (all lights at the same time) and then back to green. I can't get the orange light to stay on by itself. I'm using a new Series 3 HD Tivo, Software v 8.1, eSata II (Tripp Lite) cable and a 250gb Seagate drive in an eSata enclosure.
Any thoughts?
George

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 24th 2007 7:15PM]

Finally found on other sites that the support is not yet there on the Tivo HD for plug-n-play. I did find instructions on how to use the mvslive software and used it. I was hesitant before about opening the seal on the unit (which I did for my Series 1 when I upgraded it) and losing product support. BUT, there is no seal on the Series 3 (Tivo HD) and I used the EXTREMELY SIMPLE procedure to clone the disk with existing shows to a new and larger disk -- and then expanded it to use the full space. After 30 minutes of watching it do its magic it was done. No problems, it was great. Later, if I ever happen to use all of the 750GB, I can use the same software to expand to the ESATA. In the meantime, I've put away for safe-keeping the 160GB drive that will be around for archival or recovery.

Good luck!
Steve

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2007 6:36AM]

Thanks for the info. Where did you find the"the EXTREMELY SIMPLE procedure to clone the disk with existing shows to a new and larger disk..."? What kind of hard drive did you use? I'd like to give it a try.
Thanks again,
George

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2007 9:24AM]

http://www.mfslive.org/tivo_hd.htm

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 3rd 2007 1:52AM]

A followup comment. About 6 weeeks after successfuly adding a Seagate 750GB to my TiVo 3, my housekeeper jostled my eSATA cable and I came home to the "yellow screen of death." After fooling with repeatedly reconnecting and rebooting to the same yellow screen for an hour or so, I took the cable to my shop and (carefully) "hacksawed" about two mm off of the blue rubber-plastic cover molded to the black SATA connector on each end of the cable. Voila! Restarting TiVo found the external drive again and booted up properly with no loss of programs (300+ movies) except for the Season Pass items for Monday night.

This is a word to the wise; these eSATA connectors are about 250-500 microns shy of the reach needed to reliably connect to TiVo. I could not visually detect the difference in mating.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 13th 2007 5:41PM]

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I just had a breakthrough in adding a 750g FreeAgent disk to my series 3. I've been trying (and complaining on this board) for a couple of months that I couldn't get mt Tivo to recognize the FreeAgent no matter what I did. Not one to give up, I tried two additional things: a) sold the first FreeAgent to someone else who needed it for normal backup, b) bought a new FreeAgent (less than $200 at Fry's this week), and (c), took a Dremel and knife and went after the e-sata cable in a big way (that's the blue "Link Depot" cable sold at Fry's). I knew from your posts that the blue molding had to be trimmed on the TIVO end, but I didn't realize that it didn't fit well on the FreeAgent end, either. So with a new FreeAgent and a new cable trim job, another trip through the '62' procedure for the umpteenth time and voila! 131 hours of HD, just like you guys said.

Now it might have been the new FreeAgent, but my guess is that it was interference of the cable molding. At this point, I care not...I works.

Hope this helps someone else.

Al

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 14th 2007 12:37AM]

Series 3 Tivo
Kingwin Jet JT-35EU-BK External Hard Drive Enclosure
Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G
Had issues with HD enclosure, got it replaced and then kickstart 62 worked first time. eSata cable on the Kingwin works perfectly and its internal fan is very quiet.
Was 8.3 version Tivo when I did kickstart 62 but since then I have been upgraded to 9.? with no issues. Since I got the upgrade I am assuming the Tivo must have rebooted and I did not have to do anything to keep the external drive working. I do not see any real delays other than listing all the programs can take longer since there are so many.

Thanks to everyone who helped get the word out on this.

With this much space I can pick movies that I may like an record them. Don't like them just delete it. No more worrying about running out of space.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 19th 2007 3:19PM]

Expanding with newest version 9.2, using a "non-certified" 750GB seagate I had and external eSATA enclosure. didnt even need the pause 62 trick. power off, plug drive, start, hit tivo button. it detected the new drive, ask permission to delete content and confirm usage of non-certified expansion, another reboot and i've got 131 HD hours. thing of beauty, no need for the WD $199 box.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 31st 2007 10:10AM]

http://www.mfslive.org/kickstart62.htm

"kickstart 62" is obsolete in Series 3 since firmware 9.2 (Oct 20,2007)

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 4th 2008 8:54AM]

Tried the hack and my TIVO HD Series 3 went into a perpetual reboot cycle....

I held the pause button for what seemed like minutes...

The lights would go out but I would never get just the Orange light...

I tried entering 62 after all lights went out and that didn't work...

Not sure what else to try...

Anyone else seeing this problem?

Thanks