use that USB...

[teradia]

[preface: I'm new here, reading up on TiVo hacks, and the various instructions make my head spin.]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but lots of external hard drives connect to your computer via USB. Why couldn't you treat a Series 2 as a USB hard drive and read the data that way?

[/stupid newbie question]

[Dan203]

It can't be done! The Series 2 units use an encrypted kernel signature that prevents you from making any software modifications. Until someone cracks the encryption the only thing you can do with those USB ports is add an Ethernet adapter for daily updates.

Dan

[AlphaWolf]

I wonder why tivo bothers with that? I mean, without the guide data you can't steal service on a standalone, and somebody will crack it eventualy anyways. (well technicaly you can steal service, but its much more trouble than its worth)

[jetspies]

I don't know why TiVo does it, but at two previous places where I worked on consumer electronics, we used mask rom instead of flash rom because of the cost, pure and simple.

[gps]

USB is a bus with a single master bus controller (the computer, or in this case, the s2 tivo). it will only be useful for connecting devices that have functional stable linux drivers installed on the tivo. for now that means the compatible net adaptors. Tivo may choose to support something else in the future (gamepads, keyboards, etc). (usb performance sucks, i doubt it would even be possible for them to sell branded expensive storage expansions)

If the tivo engineers did their job right, it is not likely that you'll be able to hack into a series 2 tivo without a hardware modification and possibly without snooping the system bus on your particular unit. Buy & subscribe extra series ones now if you want to hack.