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.

[Howard @ 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

[Howard @ 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

[Craig Duck @ 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

[Bean6 @ 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?

[Jim @ 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.

[Pat LaPointe @ 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

[Jason Fowler @ 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.

[Jeff Hagan @ 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!

[bill @ 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

[Al @ 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

[msj @ 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.

[couch-spud @ 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

[George @ 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

[couch-spud @ 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

[George @ 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

[Owen @ Sep 25th 2007 9:24AM]

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

[Jim @ 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.

[Al @ 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

[wizard @ 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.

[Haggai @ 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.

[Dougmeister @ 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)

[ogonzo @ 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

[Ryan McGinty @ Mar 21st 2008 7:37PM]

I've got the new TivoHD and it upgraded to version 9.2. It has a place in the software to setup your external drive, however I'm now getting the error "This device may not be setup."

It seems that many of you have been able to get it to work so please let me know if you see that I'm doing something wrong. I'm using a 750GB Free Agent Pro. I'm pretty sure my cable is working as the lights goe off and come back on when the Tivo restarts.

I've also tried the 62 option without luck. It sounds like this was taken away with the software update. If I would have know that I would have installed my drive before letting it upgrade!!!!

Thanks for any help.

[Videobob @ May 26th 2008 3:24AM]

I think the instructions need to be updated.
I have been trying to do that friggin KickStart62 on my Series3 for the last
few hours with no success.
However after reading some of the notes I noticed all the complaints about these eSata cables.
I too bought that blue "LinkDepot" cable from Fry's for $9.99
and I noticed that it was so stiff that it wouldn't stay in the connector
and didn't fit well.
Believe it or not I was messing with it and the clip came right off the end
of the damned thing and I had to carefully work it back in.
I used a razor knife and trimmed about 1/4" off each end and they
did fit a lot better. I fired up the TiVo and low and behold the thing
was detected!!!! It asked me the warning questions and it worked!
My drive is a Acomdata PureDrive 1TB for less than $200.
Now I have 165 HD hours, and 1561 SD hours.
So yeah, I'm covered and won't have to worry about deleting stuff
again. My only fear is something going wrong with the drive and
loosing everything!!!
So far it's good, thanks!!!

[Perry @ Jul 16th 2008 12:22AM]

VideoBob,

I have the same 1TB PureDrive that you have. My TIVO HD with 9.2 is reporting "This device is unsupported and may not be set up with your TiVo HD DVR."

Any suggestions you can offer?

Thanks,

Perry

[captwatts @ Jan 31st 2009 3:31AM]

What is the tivo software version you have? I cannot get the same external hard drive to work. Drive not supported error.
Thx

[Marcia @ Jun 16th 2008 10:20PM]

I'm so happy to read that I can add an external drive to be able to record many more happy hours of tv on HD. I am just loathe to buy the "one" drive (WD mydvr expander) that they support. WD also makes a 750gb drive that supports esata (needed for Tivo), firewire and usb 2.0 for less money than the 500gb dvr expander. Won't this work as well with 50% more memory? Will I have to do anything other than the instructions I've seen to add it?

Thanks

[chris @ Jun 18th 2008 12:52PM]

Marcia before you get too happy read the two post above you. Im sure TIVO reads these threads and "fixed" the fact that any hard drive will work. I too pushed the *&^*# button for 30 min to get nothing. I called tivo and they said only the approved hard drive will work. I ordered one from amazon. Now a real hacker should see whats inside that hard drive and find a way to put it in any hard drive.

[Brent @ Sep 8th 2008 8:39PM]

Does anyone know if the process described in this article still works now that Tivo has an official solution? I know that WD now sells an official add-on 500 GB drive for the Tivo, but I want to add 1 TB instead. I'm just wondering if Tivo ever disabled the ability to add on non-Tivo-endorsed drives.

[Rob @ Oct 23rd 2008 10:13PM]

Why don't you reccommend using a bare drive? Please explain and add your explanation in the web page.

Thanks!

-- Quoted from the kickstart 62 page:

"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."

[Jeff @ Nov 3rd 2008 8:02PM]

I tried this procedure on my S3 ... it went into a "Welcome! Powering Up .." infinite loop ... I'm sorta stuck in this loop, and I've tried powering down and letting it boot normally ... no go ... still in infinite loop.

What next?

[Octavio Lamas @ Mar 8th 2009 1:52PM]

Has anyone figured this out yet? I bought a 1 TB Seagate Xtreme Freeagent ST310005FPA2E3-RK and My series 3 HD tivo just keeps rebooting to the welcome screen. I've tried the Pause and 62 kickstart but never got the orange light and also tried to just let it boot and see if the TIVO will read the drive on it own to no avail. HELP!!

[Xirtam717 @ Nov 6th 2008 11:27PM]

I just connected a 1TB Fantom GForce external drive. {GF1000EU} The TiVo recognized it right away. I didn't have to kick start my Series 3. It did warn me that the drive was unsupported but offered to let me continue. When I said to continue The TiVo rebooted then it offered to format the new drive. After that was done I had 135 additional hours of HD recording space available. It was almost to easy.

[Latteman @ Nov 13th 2008 11:33AM]

Does anyone know if this works for the TivoHD (The series 3's ;ottle brother) as well? I know it takes the WD 500GB MY DVR Expander but would like to use another ESATA drive I already own!

[Latteman @ Nov 13th 2008 1:12PM]

The previous posting should have read (The Series 3's Little brother) If anybody knows if any other external drive will work that would be great. I have a Tvio HD on order and will have to do something to increase its capacity. I am replacing a Verizon FIOS Multi room DVR. The FIOS DVR is a disaster. The navigation doesn't begin to compare to TIVO's, it cannot have its minuscule capacity increased and when I rigged a dual tuner Series 2 TIVO to it (just until I get the TIVO HD) it (the FIOS Motorola DVR) lost any semblance to a dual tuner unit! When the TIVO called for a recording it would chop off the FIOS box without engaging the 2nd tuner. As a result I have a box with mostly incomplete recordings!

Please respond soon on connecting an "unsupported drive!"

[Julian @ Feb 2nd 2009 4:47AM]

Does this hack work on a tivo in Australia?

Can i then take the recordings off the hard drive and put them on my computer?

[Gringo @ Mar 22nd 2009 7:57PM]

I have a Series 3 with software version 11, and tried the Kickstart 62. Guess what, it didn't work and the eSATA drive I am trying to use will not work through the normal setup. It does recongnize the drive, but says it's not supported. Does anyone have any other recommendations on how to get this to work?

[Quixotic @ Apr 17th 2009 10:29AM]

Regarding adding storage to a Verizon Fios, it is or will soon be possible. On 3/31/08 I was on the helpline with "Garlin" and got him chatting about tech stuff while waiting for the Fios box to "cold init". Anyway, he said that in the next month or so Verizon was going to enable the eSATA plug on the back of the DVR boxes. I found this set of messages while doing some searching for the right drive to buy. Garlin recommended "thinkgeek.com". Does anyone have experience with them or have another recommendation? Thanks in advance.