(deprecated) HDVR2/DSR7000 Hacking Instructions (was "My HDVR2 hacking experience")

[mrblack51]

NOTE: this information is current, but has been deprecated. the preffered method for getting bash, regardless of version, is to use the monte method (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22154). this information is for historical purposes mainly. there are a number of guides which utilize the bash_env method only, i would recommend NOT using them in general.

well, I went ahead and got a new HDVR2 to mess around with, so I thought I would share my observations. I used the hacking guide over at AVS: Hacking the HDVR2 (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90268) - Alternate version in this thread (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=97110#post97110)

A couple things I ran into:
1) I couldn't get bash with the factory image that my unit shipped with. I was able to get a copy of a 3.1.U5-01-2-151 image, and then I was in like flynn. EDIT: specifically, my unit shipped with 3.1.0-01-2-151. That version cannot be hacked with the BASH_ENV method.

2) for some reason, I wasn't able to restore the image I pulled off my original drive back to my original drive. I kept getting errors saying that my drive was too small for the image (yes, i didnt use the -s 127 flag). After grabbing another 40gb drive that was slightly larger, all went fine

3) the tivo will check files on everything except the /var partition, so if you want to hack the rc.sysinit, you should make sure to copy it as a part of your hackinit file. my hackinit file is below. you might be able to skip the rm, but i do it just in case.

4) I chose to add upgradesoftware=false to my bootparams, and i chose to disable the default gateway. this should 'hopefully' keep my unit from being update for now

below is the hackinit that i use:

#!/bin/bash
date>>/var/hack/hackinit.log
PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:/tvbin:.
TIVO_ROOT=
MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10
IGNOREEOF=1000
export PATH TIVO_ROOT MFS_DEVICE IGNOREEOF

/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&

insmod /diag/usbcore.o
insmod /diag/usb-ohci.o
insmod /diag/pegasus.o
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.97 broadcast 192.168.1.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
#route add default gw 192.168.1.1 netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1
tnlited 23 /bin/bash -login &
tivoftpd

mount -o remount,rw /


fixsub/tier stuff works the same as with 3.1 on the series 1 units

if you want to replace a file on boot, here is some code which can be added to your hackinit. it won't necessarily do what you want due to race condition possibilities, but it works for some things:

# replace myfile with modified copy
rm -rf /path/to/myfile
cp /var/hack/myfile /path/to/myfile

[mrblack51]

I also was able to get tivoweb 1.9.4 up and going on the unit. I have no idea if the regular 1.9.4 release has issues with the way the unit was modified, since I am using a modified version.

In order to get tivoweb to work on the s2 dtivo, you need to add 151 to the list of suffixes for dtivo units in httpd-tt.tcl. the lines should look like this when done


if { [lsearch "001 011 031 151" $suffix] >= 0 } {
set dtivo 1
} else {
set dtivo 0
}


also, you need to replace the ppc binaries which are used by tivoweb with versions compiled for mips. Thanks to some help from wcb, copies of the needed files are attached below. make sure to chmod 777 them before you try to use tivoweb

[TechnoMage]

Thank you very much for the posting of your code and copies of the binaries. This helps a-lot.

[mrblack51]

Attached are mips compiled versions of tyhttpd and mfs_stream. If you setup mfsstreamweb98 (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20901) like normal, then copy over these files instead of the binaries in that zip.

I used the stuff alldeadhomiez mentioned (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21142) before recording the show that i tried to extract. Not sure whether the stream was extracted improperly, the patch doesnt descramble properly, or the internal mpeg structure has changed. in any event, vsplit didnt seem to like it.

NOTE: mfs_stream was not compiled with pri1 in this version. not sure if it will matter in the long run, but just FYI.

Edit: after further testing, it appears that the tyhttpd and mfs_stream files work properly (w00t!). now to figure out the scrambling/stream stuff

[mrblack51]

just incase some of you were wondering, these are my bootparams:


bash-2.02# bootpage -p /dev/hda
root=/dev/hda7 upgradesoftware=false BASH_ENV=`mount$IFS-n$IFS/dev/hda14$IFS/mnt;echo$IFS/mnt/hacks`


this is the command I used to apply the params to my drive. replace the XX with the partition as described in Ingineer's directions, and the X with the drive letter for your tivo drive.


bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 upgradesoftware=false BASH_ENV=\`mount\$IFS-n\$IFS/dev/hdaXX\$IFS/mnt;echo\$IFS/mnt/hacks\`" -C /dev/hdX

[Combat Medic]

OK, when I try this I just download an empty file from my HDVR2. Any ideas?

-Mike

[mrblack51]

combat: did you use the kmem patch linked earlier in the thread? if not, that would probably be a cause. also, are you sure you are running the tyhttpd server and that mfsstreamweb can find the mfs_stream executable? i have sucessfully pulled shows off using this setup, and while i havent been able to demux them yet, i have been able to determine that the video is being recorded unscrambled via that patch.

to all: the easiest thing to do with that patch is to run it at the end of your hackinit.

[mrblack51]

/tvlib/tcl/updateSoftware.tcl is used by the s2 dtivo to finish an upgrade. two things can be done to modify this functinoality:

1) modify rc.sysinit to never run the code. this can be done by commenting out the following section:

# Check for software upgrade
if [ "$swupgrade" = true ]; then
/tvlib/tcl/updateSoftware.tcl
fi

by putting # symbols in front of those statements. you can also do a 'swupgrade=false' right above those lines. once you modified the rc.sysinit, copy it to your /var/hack dir and set up hackinit to copy it over the normal rc.sysinit.

2) rename updateSoftware.tcl to something else. you will have to put it back as updateSoftware.tcl if you want to upgrade in the future

[mrblack51]

info for some of the chips in the S2

[mrblack51]

more info

[mrblack51]

edit: stupid file size limits

[mrblack51]

photos of the HDVR2 MB and PS

[mrblack51]

tridge's mfs utils (part 1 of 2)

Edit: after attempting to post these a few times, you get a little distracted. props go out to alldeadhomiez and emuroot for helping with these compiles.

[mrblack51]

tridge's mfs utils (part 2 of 2)

[jdiner]

I am more than happy to work on my tools to get HDVR2 support. 2 people in my family have them now. I just need to get one that is hacked. So I will be reading up on it and trying it on one of these boxes today. If all goes well I should have vsplit S2 aware in short order. And then I can roll all of the changes into TyTool and we should be good.

And no such post would be complete without a big thanks to those that made all of this new fun possible by figuring out the really hard things... :)

--jdiner

[jdiner]

Cool. Using this thread and the tivocommunity forum thread from Ingineer I got it hacked and things seem to be up and running. Which is great news.

But I can't get the ethernet finished. I have it working in the main. I can see the activity lights are on and the connection is there. Verifiied by using a hub and watching traffic on it as well.

But when I make the call to ifconfig on eth0 it reports that there is no such device. I used the 3 insmod calls you posted to usbcore.o, usb-ohci.o and pegasus.o and they are loaded but I can get nothing from eth0.

I have the linksys USB100M model of usb ethernet adaptor.

It is frustrating. If you have any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them.

--jdiner

[Thom]

Not all USB ethernet adapters will work. Try a different adapter.

[jdiner]

Thanks for the advice. You were most correct. Pulled source code last night from the web. The pegasus driver is available that way BTW, and found that the supported list did not include it. I thought it did but it was the 100tx not the 100M that was in there.

So I got one of the other ones this morning and it came right up.

At some point someone is going to have to update the driver... :)

I appriciate the help.

--jdiner

[dsully]

The Linksys 100M doesn't use the pegasus driver, but the rtl8150 module instead. Grab it from http://sekrut.net/~tivo/

[jdiner]

For the HDVR2 here it is:

tserver_mfs

no pri1 on this code. I need to figure out what changed and get it working again. After a quick look it looks like the standard priority setting stuff will work. If it does then it should be quick to get a nice low priority version out.

--jdiner

[JackBlack]

Where can I get a 3.1.U5-01-2-151 HDVR2 image?

Thanks

[mrblack51]

heres the source for everything except mfs_stream, adjusted to compile for mips. just remove the .txt extension. thanks to emuroot for these mods

[jdiner]

Ack. Crap. Someone pointed out to me this morning that I had posted the last testing version. It works it just sends no output back. Here is a working version.

Sorry about that. My Bad...

--jdiner

[Ego]

Originally posted by mrblack51
tridge's mfs tools (part 2 of 2)

I assume these ZIPS (mips version of MFSTools) is for running MFSTools while telnet'd/bash'd into the tivo while it is running, right? So would the regular old MFSTools 2.0 work if you're just hooking the drive up to a regular PC to add or replace the drive?

Further, why would one want to use MFSTools on a live tivo drive while it's running in the tivo? Wouldn't that cause damage?

Thanks..

[mrblack51]

tridge's mfs tools are stuff like mfs_export and whatnot. these are not the same thing as tiger's mfstools 2.0.

tridge's stuff plays with the mfs of a unit.
tiger's does backups (yes, 2.0 works with the s2. check the link in the first post of this thread).

[Ego]

Originally posted by mrblack51
tridge's mfs tools are stuff like mfs_export and whatnot. these are not the same thing as tiger's mfstools 2.0.

tridge's stuff plays with the mfs of a unit.
tiger's does backups (yes, 2.0 works with the s2. check the link in the first post of this thread).

I see, thanks for clearing that up. I hadn't realized there were two "mfstools" floating around. Strangely enough, I knew of mfs_export and those other tools, I just never connected the dots. :)

Thanks!

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by Ego
I see, thanks for clearing that up. I hadn't realized there were two "mfstools" floating around. Strangely enough, I knew of mfs_export and those other tools, I just never connected the dots. :)

Thanks!

just so everyone is clear: there is only one mfstools, and tiger made it. tridge put some tools together for working with the mfs, such as mfs_export, mfs_import, etc. i suppose my wording in the original post may have been unclear

[AlphaWolf]

Tridges collection of mfs utilities is better known as "vplay"

[skinny]

I'm investigating getting an HDVR2. What are the transfer rates you guys are seeing over usb ethernet?

Also, is anyone putting together a TiVo Servies 2 Hacking HOWTO?

Thanks.

[mrblack51]

im not sure how much more of a how-to you need? there is a complete how-to to hack a 3.1.U5 image linked by the first post in this thread, with the changes which should be done in that post.

other than replacing the s1 compiled programs with their mips compiled counterparts, all instructions are the same. the only difference is that you have to put stuff under /var/hack and subdirectories in there. all 3.x enabled scripts should work ok

[skinny]

mrblack51,

Sorry, I missed the link in your first paragraph.

Thanks.

[punkerg1]

Does this mean one could rum xtreme 3.1 on series 2 dtivo?

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by punkerg1
Does this mean one could rum xtreme 3.1 on series 2 dtivo?

no. scripts can be used on either for the most part, but compiled programs cannot be shared between the s1 and s2.

[huntdubie]

Say I did hack my TiVo and extracted some video. The next question is does the Series 2 SA scramble the video? Cuz I got like 150 Simpsons episodes on my TiVo + some good movies.

[Cryptlogic]

could someone please post an address for a series 2 hdvr2 hughes drive image tivo.bak..........please

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by huntdubie
Say I did hack my TiVo and extracted some video. The next question is does the Series 2 SA scramble the video? Cuz I got like 150 Simpsons episodes on my TiVo + some good movies.

AFAIK, the SA units (both S1 and S2) do not scramble their video

[Ego]

Originally posted by mrblack51
AFAIK, the SA units (both S1 and S2) do not scramble their video

We know for sure the series1 doesn't. I'm betting the farm that s2 doesn't either. I think the only reason for scrambling on any tivo is that DirecTV asked TiVo to do it, or, perhaps to avoid DMCA issues. With the Standalones, there's no digital stream, its all analog, so there's no worries of stepping on the DMCA.

[huntdubie]

thx guys

[huntdubie]

thx guys

[huntdubie]

one more question: does anyone know how similar the hacking process would be for a S2 standalone (tivo brand) considering the guide is based upon a DTIVO HDVR?

[nitrous]

Hi MrBlack51,

I think I'm starting to get the idea of series 2. In your hackinit file, you run the bash routine and you also copy rc.sysinit to the /etc/rc.d directory... this is because tivo wipes this stuff out, right? My tivo is readonly (at least when I finished with the hack to get bash) so how can it copy the rc.sysinit over? (ooops, didn't see you mount it as rw!)

Can I use a hacked rc.sysinit from xtreme for the various hacks?

Final question: unlike the series 1 units, series 2 doesn't seem to use any files located in /etccombo (bootxxx.btl). Is there an equivalent in series 2? copying boot299.btl left me without a bootable series 2 :)

This stuff is getting kinda interesting!

Nitrous

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by nitrous
[B]In your hackinit file, you run the bash routine and you also copy rc.sysinit to the /etc/rc.d directory... this is because tivo wipes this stuff out, right?

bingo


Can I use a hacked rc.sysinit from xtreme for the various hacks?

if you are talking about how they call scripts, get bash, and such, then yes


Final question: unlike the series 1 units, series 2 doesn't seem to use any files located in /etccombo (bootxxx.btl). Is there an equivalent in series 2? copying boot299.btl left me without a bootable series 2 :)

is there an equivilent? yup. what is it...well, think about what the btl was used for, then start poking around the hard disk. it will be blatantly obvious.

oh, and dont try using btl's on an s2. the s2 doesnt have the st5505 chips that the btls are used with, so attempting to load them could have unexpected results. in order to unify the images, i am guessing that the scripts will look for whatever card comm stuff is there and load it. on a normal tivo, you will never see the wrong stuff, so it should be a good solution.


This stuff is getting kinda interesting!

yup. i dont watch tv on my hdvr2, i have only been hacking it so far. new frontier (well, sort of) is always fun to explore

[orangejaylove]

the other how to thread that this was linked to seems to have said that the bash prompt is dead cuse of the 3.2 upgrade, did you just set it to upgrade false and leave the phone line upluged, sorry i'm more then alittle lost but im trying dangit!
:mad:

[nitrous]

Series2 .btl equivalent

Thanks MrBlack51,

I don't watch on my HDVR2 either. I have a T60 for that!
I'm very new to the linux scene so am learning slowly. I'm guessing that the .btl extension is a bootloader extension but I know that if umount is "unmount" in linux, .btl could be anything! :)

Assuming there is an equivalent, it sounds like any modification will require some Hex code changes.

On a completely different tact, there is an interesting problem coming up with the Xupgrade release. It seems that there is a dialup number fixed in that image that is no longer valid. That leads to a nag screne when trying to access TiVo button. That leaves you trying to make a change by getting tivo to dial home and update the number list. Since #21,1 has put an end to that function, the nag persists.

Any suggestions?

Nitrous

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by orangejaylove
the other how to thread that this was linked to seems to have said that the bash prompt is dead cuse of the 3.2 upgrade, did you just set it to upgrade false and leave the phone line upluged, sorry i'm more then alittle lost but im trying dangit!
:mad:

i dont have the phone line plugged in on my HDVR2 (no need since i dont watch tv on it), and as you can see by the info i posted in my thread about hacking my unit, i disabled the default root so the tivo would only see my internal network.

3.2 is currently sealed up against the BASH_ENV hack. there are many other hacks available, just depends on your skills

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by nitrous
Series2 .btl equivalent

Thanks MrBlack51,

I don't watch on my HDVR2 either. I have a T60 for that!
I'm very new to the linux scene so am learning slowly. I'm guessing that the .btl extension is a bootloader extension but I know that if umount is "unmount" in linux, .btl could be anything! :)

Assuming there is an equivalent, it sounds like any modification will require some Hex code changes.

On a completely different tact, there is an interesting problem coming up with the Xupgrade release. It seems that there is a dialup number fixed in that image that is no longer valid. That leads to a nag screne when trying to access TiVo button. That leaves you trying to make a change by getting tivo to dial home and update the number list. Since #21,1 has put an end to that function, the nag persists.

Any suggestions?

Nitrous

file extensions arent the same in unix as they are in dos/windows. anything can be made executable in linux with the proper mode set, regardless of extension. since you seem to be floundering, i will help out a little more: look at /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and /etc/rc.d/rc.arch. you will see how the old btl was used, and a few other things. and yes, hex-editing will be required

as for the xupgrade quesiton, unless you used that on an S2 (i certainly hope not), please take that to one of the other forums on this BBS so we can keep this section S2 oriented

[nitrous]

Floundering a bit? Who me?! ;)
Thanks for the advice. I'll be taking a peek at those two files asap.

Sorry for the cross post on that other issue...:D

[mrblack51]

just fyi:

as of yesterday, i was able to obtain bash access to my HDVR2 without using the BASH_ENV hack. by using a hacked prom (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=784253&highlight=prom#post784253) and a modified initrd (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21976), i was able to get bash, modify the root filesystem, run tivoftpd, etc. to defeate the signature checks in the kernel, i dd'd the gziped initrd that i put together onto the kernel where the old initrd was located. it shouldnt be hard to write a small utility that will do this for me, but i figure this is good enough for now.

This was on a 3.1.U5 image, since thats the only one i have. i will try to upgrade my unit to 3.2 and see how things go, but i expect it will work great. just thought i would give people a heads up.

NOTE: you MUST hack your prom for this solution to work. don't blame me when you screw up your box.

[nitrous]

Congratulations MrBlack51!

I'm looking at the prom 'update' in the next while (in all my copious free time, that is :) )

Thanks for the update.

Nitrous

[KRavEN]

There wont be a prom update. The prom isn't inline flashable on the dtivo2.

If anyone is just dying to get theirs hacked, contact me via PM. I'll socket and reflash your prom for $50. You ship only the motherboard to me and include a return shipping label in the box.

I can also do game console work on certain consoles.

[dariussquared]

can anyone make the information on how to do this available for free?

[orangejaylove]

think I'll have to do that prom update, 9th tee has back ordered my hard drive bracket so I guess I can send the motherboard out for a quick flash job before everything is here then I can just sit and play with my HDVR2 for about 10hours straight getting it to work

[orangejaylove]

think I'll have to do that prom update, 9th tee has back ordered my hard drive bracket so I guess I can send the motherboard out for a quick flash job before everything is here then I can just sit and play with my HDVR2 for about 10hours straight getting it to work

[citivolus]

any idea why I lost my locals, even though I followed all the steps outlined in this thread? I started with the U5 image posted in another thread here.

thanks!

[citivolus]

Originally posted by citivolus
any idea why I lost my locals, even though I followed all the steps outlined in this thread? I started with the U5 image posted in another thread here.

thanks!

thankfully, they have "returned" this morning without me doing anything. maybe it was the "DVR Service Download" that happened about 2:30AM that did the trick.

[FastEddieG]

My system information window has changed. There is a lot more data in it than "usual".. granted I have only had the HDVR2 up 3 days now :)

Backdoors: Enabled
What backdoors are enabled now?

DEBUG: a whole bunch of info like Old SS, New SSS, SS err.
What the heck do they mean?

Service Data Download... completed this morning at 3:30am.. what the heck did I download.. I have updatesoftware=false set in the bootpage.. maybe I should edit rc.sysinit also, eh?

Icebox Files: (No iceboxes)
Huh?!? :)


Then below the disclaimer.. a whole bunch of true/false settings...

Allow Manual Rec:
Allow LiveTV Rec:
Allow PPV Rec:
Enable Rec Engine:

etc etc

Any insight would be appreciated :)

Thanks in advance,
-Ed

[mrblack51]

when you enable backdoors it adds all that stuff. by default, backdoors are enabled when eth0 are present.

Originally posted by FastEddieG
My system information window has changed. There is a lot more data in it than "usual".. granted I have only had the HDVR2 up 3 days now :)

Backdoors: Enabled
What backdoors are enabled now?

DEBUG: a whole bunch of info like Old SS, New SSS, SS err.
What the heck do they mean?

Service Data Download... completed this morning at 3:30am.. what the heck did I download.. I have updatesoftware=false set in the bootpage.. maybe I should edit rc.sysinit also, eh?

Icebox Files: (No iceboxes)
Huh?!? :)


Then below the disclaimer.. a whole bunch of true/false settings...

Allow Manual Rec:
Allow LiveTV Rec:
Allow PPV Rec:
Enable Rec Engine:

etc etc

Any insight would be appreciated :)

Thanks in advance,
-Ed

[FastEddieG]

MrBlack,

Thanks for the quick response. And as always, thanks for taking some time to answer YANQ (yet another newbie question) :)

Have a good evening!
-Ed

[dpr]

MrBlack and others.

Thanks for the instructions and the pointer to the image...the other weekend I successfully did the 'downgrade' to the U5 release, installed my 2 x 120gb disks, got a bash prompt and configured a belkin usb ethernet adapter. Put the upgradesoftware=false in the bootparams. Then I did the delete everything and went through the setup process. Then I did the daily call and watched the box download the new image over my broadband connection!

Net result, no more bash prompt and no more network connection...and an hdvr2 upgraded to the latest software.

I'm able to repeat the whole downgrade to U5 etc, but what
do I do once I've gotten the upgrade and network running to stop the cheeky box from upgrading again? No call ever? What will this break?

pm me if you wish.
Thanks.
D.:confused:

[mrblack51]

well, if you use fixsub and comment out the route command as i did in the first post of this thread, then there is no real downside. you wont get the latest software update, but you dont want that. fixsub will take care of the subscription, which it is clear you are paying for (as everyone should be). this is the exact situation where fixsub is desirable.

oh, upgradesoftware=false doesnt do anything, since its never checked. i will look at the rc.sysinit to see what should be set.

Originally posted by dpr
MrBlack and others.

Thanks for the instructions and the pointer to the image...the other weekend I successfully did the 'downgrade' to the U5 release, installed my 2 x 120gb disks, got a bash prompt and configured a belkin usb ethernet adapter. Put the upgradesoftware=false in the bootparams. Then I did the delete everything and went through the setup process. Then I did the daily call and watched the box download the new image over my broadband connection!

Net result, no more bash prompt and no more network connection...and an hdvr2 upgraded to the latest software.

I'm able to repeat the whole downgrade to U5 etc, but what
do I do once I've gotten the upgrade and network running to stop the cheeky box from upgrading again? No call ever? What will this break?

pm me if you wish.
Thanks.
D.:confused:

[dpr]

Thanks... what does fixsub do? Can I still do ppv?

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by dpr
Thanks... what does fixsub do?
do a search on the topic, losts of info

Can I still do ppv?
um, ppv is a seperate issue related to your subscription with DTV...something we dont discuss here. needless to say that there is no script which opens ppvs for you without modifying your card.

[troesma]

can anyone help me setup an ftp deamon on my hdvr2?
i've telnet access via LAN and have tried runing tivoftpd without success. i get an error message saying it cannot excecute the binary file

HELP!!
thanks,
T.

[mrblack51]

where did you get your copy of tivoftpd? did you make sure its for mips, and not ppc? did you make sure to chmod a+x tivoftpd so it is executable?

[troesma]

Originally posted by mrblack51
where did you get your copy of tivoftpd? did you make sure its for mips, and not ppc? did you make sure to chmod a+x tivoftpd so it is executable?

thanks for your quick response!!
i realized i had a ppc copy. downloaded mips compiled version and now is running OK!!

now i have problems with tivoweb. i followed your recomendations on replacing bsearch and get_space binaries and also added 151 suffix to httpd_....tcl but i get the following error:

bash-2.02# tivoweb console
bash-2.02# WARNING: couldn't scan startup script /tvlib/tcl/tv/tv.ini
WARNING: eval result : can't read "env(TIVO_ROOT)": no such element in array

i have "TIVO_ROOT=" statement in hackinit and i can also see the script /tvlib/tcl/tv/tv.ini with no problem on a telnet session

any idea on what's going on??

thanks again!!
T.

[troesma]

got it working now.
have no clue how i fixed it. but after playing around and a couple of reboots i now have tivoweb!!! :D

[TheHern]

Help! Need a U5 image for an HDVR2. I got one, and saturday nights when the wife is asleep (I haven't talked her into getting a second one for me to play with yet) is hacking time. I've played with linux for years...so hopefully I'll be able to provide some assistance to furthering the work on this unit.

So please....I'm begging (not really, but I can't find one anywhere)...point me to an image.

Thanx in advance.

[TheHern]

Sorry for being a dumbass...I found it on another board (user error)...I'll get caught up on access now and then catch up to where folks are on ports to this unit.

Thanx to all for the info...your making this easy..:D

[jfkjfk]

Can updates only come via broadband or phone line? Im pretty sure that's the way things were in the past, but we've also been running the nosdd on series 1s, I'm assuming for fear that newer software versions may evenutally come via satellite?

Anyhow.. Was looking through rc.sysinit and also see


if [ "$upgradesoftware" = false ]; then
echo "Not upgrading software"
else
# TODO... Find another way to do this...
tivosh /etc/rc.d/finishInstall.tcl
export -n EMERGENCY_REINSTALL
fi

which if we are bothering to comment out

# Check for software upgrade
if [ "$swupgrade" = true ]; then
/tvlib/tcl/updateSoftware.tcl
fi

should not we also be concered about?

jfkjfk

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by jfkjfk
Can updates only come via broadband or phone line? Im pretty sure that's the way things were in the past, but we've also been running the nosdd on series 1s, I'm assuming for fear that newer software versions may evenutally come via satellite?


new versions have come down via satellite in the past. they havent been forced, but could be taken with the proper data group enabled. yeah, the nosdd thing seemed a bit paranoid to me, but to each their own.

[kbuegel]

I was going to try to hack my SA S2 T60 by downgrading to the 3.1.U5 software version, but I was not sure if there is an image available for the Stand-Alone version, and not sure if the BASH_ENV hack instructions will work right on a stand-alone Tivo instead of a dtivo. A previous message asked pretty much this same question, but was not answered (publicly, anyway, or perhaps I missed it).

Currently, my T60 is successfully downloading via the internet using a Farallon USB/Ethernet adapter which I purchased for the bargain price of $9.99 at my local computer store. I have version 4.0 software running on my Tivo now. Don't really plan to do the Home Media Option thing, so seems like version 3.1 or 3.0 would be fine for me as long as I can continue to receive guide updates (have a lifetime subscription). The PROM flash is another possibility, but seems like more work (perhaps). We use the Tivo alot for timeshifting what few shows we like to watch, and I'm mostly doing this hack to extract video to a new DVD writer in my computer I got last month. I have always recorded shows I like on VHS tapes, and now I just want to step up to DVD. It seems dumb to buy a Dazzle-type device to re-digitize the Tivo video, so direct extraction makes so much more sense to me. Even if I bought a DVD recorder unit, it would still be digitizing and undigitizing several times before it gets to the media.

If you think I would be better off buying a used series 1 tivo rather than hacking my SA S2, feel free to say so. You guys all seem to have a ton of experience with the various Tivo hacks, so I'll respect any opinions you have!

Thanks in advance!

[Insomnia]

cp /var/hack/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

As much as I hate to admit it, I am totally lost here. I see where you have given the command to copy the modified rc.sysinit in the /var/hack at boot up to the /etc/rc.d, but I'm confused as to exactly what parts of the code to # out, and where and if it is actually still necessary to add the "$upgradesoftware" = false. Also, just for clarification, although I suppose I could find this out the hard way, mrblack51, you mention an alternative way to stop the update by renaming the updatesoftware.tcl, can this file be renamed in the /tvlib/tcl without it being reverted back by the prom at bootup, or is it necessary to create a boot parameter to rename the file at boot up in the /var/hack (I'm assuming the latter). Thanks for all the great info guys, but still lots of holes here for n00bs like me ! :)

[TheHern]

I think this has been mentioned before, but I don't recall any real discussion on it...

Since the PROM checks the kernel signature, and the post U5 kernels cannot take the BASH_ENV hack, why can't we just take a box that has upgrade past U5 and put the U5 kernel back? This kernel would then pass the PROM test, but would still give us our bash prompt?

Any thoughts or comments before I try it?

thanx

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by TheHern
I think this has been mentioned before, but I don't recall any real discussion on it...

Since the PROM checks the kernel signature, and the post U5 kernels cannot take the BASH_ENV hack, why can't we just take a box that has upgrade past U5 and put the U5 kernel back? This kernel would then pass the PROM test, but would still give us our bash prompt?

Any thoughts or comments before I try it?

thanx

the kernel checks specific versions of the software. ie: the u5 software checks for the U5 tivoapp and such. if the tivoapp or any other program changed between U5 and the current version, then the signature will not match and the initrd will remove it. good thought, but wont work in the way you suggest.

[TheHern]

Ok...I'm a linux guy...so lets take it one step further...

I assume that only certain partitions are checked for information, so we put the old U5 versions on there, as well as the new versions...we then let the U5 kernel boot, check the signatures, then have hackinit re-mount partitions for the new version before continuing with the boot...

Just thinking out of the box...I'm trying to avoid PROM hacks for now...just to see what I can learn...

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by TheHern
Ok...I'm a linux guy...so lets take it one step further...

I assume that only certain partitions are checked for information, so we put the old U5 versions on there, as well as the new versions...we then let the U5 kernel boot, check the signatures, then have hackinit re-mount partitions for the new version before continuing with the boot...

Just thinking out of the box...I'm trying to avoid PROM hacks for now...just to see what I can learn...

the problem is whether the difference in the kernels causes problems with the newer software, or if the kernel difference is only for signature reasons. theoretically, you could mix and match kernel and sw versions if there is no version dependant stuff.

[TheHern]

I can live with that...I'll try it and see what happens...if it won't work then I will just have to write a chain loader to have the U5 loader boot the newer kernel...

Heard of anyone working on this yet? Or am I starting from scratch? I've done hacks to lilo on intel...so the knowledge is there (just been a few years).

[TheHern]

Might be time to move this to a new board..but this is what I'm thinking:

1. Boot U5 kernel against U5 files (needed for signature checking
2. Have the hack script unmount U5 stuff and re-mount with the newer version
3. Have the hack script call a tool similar to the loadlin tool in DOS (that one for intel of course) that loads a new custom kernel (such as what I've seen you discussed with the PROM hack and modified initrd image) that is the latest version, with bash

All of this is of course dependent on the fact that I need to learn the MIPS boot sequence from the PROM, but I have a feeling all of that info can be dug up...

Is my thinking flawed? Worth Pursing? I'm new to Tivo, and certainly to Linux on MIPS, but all of this is fairly elementary on a intel box...

[mrblack51]

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22154&highlight=two+kernel

its a valid idea if pulled off

[wkendrvr]

OK, I have BASH! (fixsub and usb too!)

Even got the background images!!!

This was a long challenge but a good one!


Now, what would be the advantage of chain loading a newer kernel?

Maybe its just me, but my hdvr2 with the newer kernel seemed to have fuzzier video than the newer software with the older u5 kernel?

[vonh]

First off thanks to Mr.Black and the other intelligent folks who made all this possible. After three attempts and correcting errors of my own doing, I'm finally stable.

I'm hesitant to mess with it anymore, but an interesting thought came to mind. I haven't heard anyone state it, but is it possible to port xplusz over to the s2. My initial thoughts were, after looking at the code, that at least the NOPHONE option might be viable. Not sure about the rest, and I'm positive that it could start bumping into s1 vs. s2 binary issues. It does look like a fair amount of the xplusz functionality is based on scripts that are supposed to be supported. I guess the only real question that I want to present is this. Are the variables that are set using the Xplusz functionality going to be compatable with the s2.

Pardon if this post is off base. I'm new to the posting to this board, but have read it now for close to a year.

Thoughts?

[wkendrvr]

Why would you want to use nophone? Fixsub, I thought accomplishes the same.

Did you get Tivo Web running?

When I try to run it I am getting a message about it not being installed properly, but it is in /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl (and I did change the binaries as directed)

[vonh]

Well it's my understanding that nophone runs fixsub. I have fixsub running at boot, but so far I've screwed up my script and I'm still having to do it manually.

As for webtivo, I had it running at one point, but I've regressed. It's still a learning proceedure for me.
*sigh*

[wkendrvr]

Originally posted by vonh
Well it's my understanding that nophone runs fixsub. I have fixsub running at boot, but so far I've screwed up my script and I'm still having to do it manually.

As for webtivo, I had it running at one point, but I've regressed. It's still a learning proceedure for me.
*sigh*

I bet the callfixsub.tcl is trying to call fixsub31.tcl and the script is actually called fixsub.tcl

Rename it and it will work...

[wkendrvr]

Has anyone else noticed that around 2am an upgrade gets downloaded. I do have the tcl files modified to not finish the software upgrade so I don't think that it is doing anything (cuz I still have bash)

Will this keep shows from recording?

(this was an update over the air, as I have no gateway setup, and also the ip blocked at my firewall, (I know paranoid :-P)

[txag93]

EDIT: I wasn't saving as UNIX file format in TextPad.

I can't get the callfixsub.tcl to work properly. When I invoke it at a bash prompt it says:

line 7: syntax error near unexpected token `done'
line 7: `done'

I have recreated the callfixsub.tcl and can't seem to get past this.

[wkendrvr]

What does your call fixsub look like?

[dogbreath]

Has anyone successfully stopped the software update? I have redone my HDVR2 twice now.

dogbreath

[wkendrvr]

Originally posted by dogbreath
Has anyone successfully stopped the software update? I have redone my HDVR2 twice now.

dogbreath

Yes...

Did you modify your rc.sysinit?


in your hackinit you should be doing this...

# replace rc.sysinit with modified copy
rm -rf /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
cp /var/hack/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit


copy rc.sysinit to /var/hack and comment out the references to software upgrades... Your box will download em and then throw em away... Would be nice to keep em from downloading completely, but for now this works...

[txag93]

my callfixsub.tcl contains:

while true; do
{
date > /var/hack/fixsub31.log
/var/hack/fixsub31.tcl
sleep 82800
}
done

So, the 'done' is on line 7, and that is what gives me the error.

Any clues on the stty 115200 not working from hackinit either?

Does anyone have a nice modified rc.sysinit for a HDVR2 they would like to share?

Thanks

[wkendrvr]

What did you use to create that? you might have a control char or something in the line...

here is mine

bash-2.02# cat callfixsub.tcl
while true; do
{
date > /var/hack/fixsub.log
/var/hack/fixsub31.tcl
sleep 82800
}
done

[kmon]

Originally posted by mrblack51
I used the hacking guide over at AVS: Hacking the HDVR2 (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90268)


Anybody have a local copy of this that they can post as the tivocommunity is down?

[wkendrvr]

Sorry no links but here is the post from Ingineer



I can find a plethora of threads on the S2, but nothing specific to the DTiVo S2, so I decided to create this, it is “newbie-grade”, and will allow others to get an idea of what’s going on with a “hands-on” approach.

I am basing these instructions on my "Test" unit, which is a HDVR2 that shipped with 3.1.U5-01-2-151.

I was tempted to create a automatic utility to do all this for someone, but that way you can’t learn!

Note: The Ethernet adapter is discussed in a later post down in the thread farther!

HOW TO OBTAIN A SERIAL BASH PROMPT and/or UPGRADE CAPACITY:

1. If you don't already have these 5 things you will need them to begin:
a. Torx T-10 Screwdriver
b. An open Windows 95/98 PC, (FAT32) that has at least 2g free space, and will boot from CD. You CANNOT use XP or 2000 with NTFS, as those partition types cannot be written to via the Linux boot CD. (you can also use Linux, but I am not going to detail this here)
c. A copy of the MFSTools2 Boot CD or better yet, the version created by Jonnydeath that includes all of the extra files mlar used in his pioneering effort. Jonnydeath is kind enough to provide this to you as a downloadable ISO image at: http://star1.jongans.com/mfstools2.iso Kudos mlar and Jonnydeath! (download and burn the ISO image to a blank CDR)
d. A spare IDE cable. Type is not too important for this operation.
e. A TiVo PC to 1/8" Serial cable. Instructions for making this are in various locations throughout the forum. Make sure it is done correctly, as I envision this is the most common source of problems. If you don't have decent electronics experience, I suggest you order this cable pre-made from somewhere like 9thtee.
f. (Optionally) A new HD for your TiVo at least Equal or Greater than your originals capacity. I used a 120g Maxtor for mine.

2. Disconnect Power to the TiVo. I recommend you leave the AC plug plugged into a Power strip and just "turn-off" the strip to preserve the Static ground path through the power supply. It is winter after-all!

3. Open the Unit using your Handy T-10 Torx Driver. Note that TiVo seems to have finally given up on the cheesy "Warranty Seal" used extensively on the S1.

4. Disconnect the cables (Power and IDE) from the Hard drive.

5. Remove the Hard Drive and Bracket assembly by removing the two T-10 Torx screws located on the Hard Drive Bracket between the Drive itself and the Front of the TiVo.

6. Treat the hard drive like a waiting heart transplant, and carefully take it to the PC and hook it up as the Secondary Master all by itself. This may require you to unplug your CDROM and reconfigure it as Primary Slave if it is not already like that. This configuration can be varied, but I don't recommend it, as my instructions are going to assume this configuration. Any other IDE devices should be unplugged. So you should have your Windoze FAT32 drive as Primary Master (IDE0), your CDROM as Primary Slave (IDE1), and your TiVo heart as Secondary Master (IDE2). You should not need to change any jumpers on the TiVo drive.

7. Insert the MFSTools2 bootable CD in the drive and boot the PC. You should quickly get a prompt that that asks for boot options. Just hit ENTER. Linux should now boot, and may ask you to login as root. Once logged in you will be at the # prompt.

8. Mount the Windows drive by using the following command:
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/c

9. Verify you can "see" the Windows drive by doing an ls /mnt/c and you should see a directory of your Windows C drive. Also verify you have at least 2 gigs free on that partition by using the df command.

10. No we are going to create a backup of your TiVo drive for safety reasons. Execute the Following Command:
mfsbackup -f 4138 -6so /mnt/c/tivo-s2.bak /dev/hdc
This will create a file in the root of your Windows drive called tivo-s2.bak that will contain a complete image of the new TiVo drive, it will be approximately 1.2g in size. Be sure this command completes successfully before you move on to the next step. It took about 5 minutes on my setup, so feel free to go have a snack and Watch something on your Series 1.... ;-)

[wkendrvr]

part 2


11. (optional) Now, here is where you choose to play it safe by using a new drive or keeping the original. We have not yet modified the TiVo drive in any way, so by keeping it intact, you have a sure-fire failsafe. I also desired to upgrade my capacity at this point, so I opted for a 120g 5400 rpm Maxtor to replace the existing 40g Maxtor my HDVR2 came with. If you are going to replace the drive, you now use the "three-finger salute" (CTRL-ALT-DEL) to halt Linux (this will safely unmount your windows drive). DO NOT power off the PC until it reboots! Once it reboots, then power it down. Remove the TiVo drive, take the Bracket off, and put it somewhere safe. Mount the bracket on the NEW drive, making sure it is set for Master first. Install it in the PC and reboot just like before, including the step to mount your windows partition. Do not run MFSbackup though!!!

12. Ok, now here is were we reverse the process and restore the backup on your drive. You have to perform this step even if you are re-using the TiVo original drive (not recommended), as we are going to use MFSrestore to create some additional partitions that are not present on your drive already. Note: Leave OUT the "-s 127" if you are re-using the "stock" drive! Your Windows partition should be mounted and ready to go, then type the following command:
mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/c/tivo-s2.bak /dev/hdc
This will re-write the backed up data from the Windows drive to the target TiVo drive and add the extra partitions. Once this process completes successfully, reboot the machine with CTRL-ALT-DEL and get back to the # prompt. Do not re-mount the Windows partition. Press and hold SHIFT and use the "Page Up" key to scroll back through the kernel boot messages, looking for the "Partition Check" where it will list all the partitions found on /dev/hdc. Make a note of the LAST hdcXX, with blank line after the name. Also, The line above the blank one we want should list a partition type called "Apple_Free", YOU WILL BE USING THE BLANK PARTITION FOR THE ROMFS STEPS BELOW! Mine was 16, which may not be one used on your drive, but NO MATTER WHAT, THE NUMBER WILL BE OVER 10! If for some stange reason it is not, DO NOT PROCEED! I also recommend You power down the PC at this point and put the New TiVo drive back in the TiVo for a quick test to be sure it worked. Since I was upgrading, I wanted to see the magic 3-digit "recording Capacity" number show up in the System Info screen. It did! YES! =) If all is well, power down the TiVo and put the drive back in the PC and get it back to the # prompt as before.

14. Notice I skipped 13. I didn't want anything to screw up when everything has worked perfectly so far! =) Ok, now this is where we begin the modifications that mlar originally developed to get that prompt! Mount Jonnydeath’s CD by typing mount /dev/hdb /cdrom It will proceed to tell you that it is a read-only file-system, and that is it mounting it accordingly. CD to the mount by typing cd /cdrom then do an ls to verify that the img subdirectory, the genromfs and the bootpage utilities are there. (if they are not, you didn’t use Jonnydeath’s MFStools version!) Now lets verify your system is like mine was, and type this command:
bootpage -p /dev/hdc
It should spit out "root=/dev/hda7" which confirms the TiVo’s active root partition is 7, so that makes the VAR mount point at 9. Lets now mount the var partition by typing:
mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/tivo
Then we check it by doing a:
ls /mnt/tivo
Now verify you see at least stuff like the "log" and "utils" subdirectories. Now if that is ok, we are ready for the actual modifications. The first chore is to generate the small ROMFS image that we will be placing on the last Blank Partition (determined in step 12). Do this by typing the following:
genromfs -f /romfs.img -d img/
This command should create a 1024 byte file in the root directory called romfs.img containing the ROM file system image which has the “hacks” file in it from the img subdirectory. Now we are ready to write it to the blank partition at the end of the TiVo drive. The blank partition we will use was created by us and determined in step 12. Make the write by typing this command:
(Note: The blue XX should be replaced with the blank partition number determined in step 12!)
dd if=/romfs.img of=/dev/hdcXX bs=1024 count=1
This command does a direct binary copy (dd) of the “infile” romfs.img directly to the partition which is located at device handle /dev/hdcXX. If all goes well you will see "1+0 records in" and "1+0 records out" and we have inserted our secret “hook” code into the last partiton on the TiVo drive. On to the next step.....

[wkendrvr]

part 3


15. Ok, now we have a block of code in the last partiton, and we will still need to “hook” it by passing kernel parameters at boot time by altering the boot page. What this code in the last partition will do is look for a file called “hackinit” in the /var/hack subdirectory and execute it when we "trick" the kernel into running it for us. In that "hackinit" file we can place anything (such as a BASH shell) we wish to have the TiVo run at startup. Now we will create that "hackinit" file and load it with a command to invoke our BASH prompt on the HDVR2’s serial port. Type:
mkdir /mnt/tivo/hack
This will create our “hack” directory in TiVo’s var subdirectory. Then type:
mkdir /mnt/tivo/hack/bin
And this makes our bin subdirectory and then:
cp -p /cdrom/devbin-s2/* /mnt/tivo/hack/bin/
That will copy over all the essential binary commands we will need to use the BASH shell. Now all we have to do is create the “hackinit” file to call our BASH shell. Do this by typing the following; Hitting ENTER after each line:
(Note: be very careful to get it 100% perfect or it may not work – Be ESPECIALLY sure to get the case right in ttyS2!)
cat >/mnt/tivo/hack/hackinit
#!/bin/bash
date>>/var/hack/hackinit.log
PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:.
/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&
Once you hit ENTER on the last line, press CTRL+D to close the file. DOUBLE-CHECK your work, because if even one character is wrong, it will not work! If you realize you made a mistake, begin again at the “cat”. Once you have verified, we need to make it and the other commands executable by doing this:
chmod -R 777 /mnt/tivo/hack
Which completes that, now all that remains to be done is the boot page “hook”.....

16. Ok this is the final modification, we hook the code in the Last Partition (determined in Step 12) by typing this VERY CAREFULLY:
(Note: The blue XX should be replaced with the blank partition number determined in step 12!)
bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 BASH_ENV=\`mount\$IFS-n\$IFS/dev/hdaXX\$IFS/mnt;echo\$IFS/mnt/hacks\`" -C /dev/hdc
Make 100% sure you get the case proper, and be VERY careful to make the “reverse single quotes” properly. Most people mess this up. There are 2 in the line, each one is preceded by a backslash (\) and is usually made by pressing the key near the upper-left of your keyboard (on the same key as the ~). If you don’t get this correct, this will all fail, So triple-check the line before hitting enter! Once this command completes, you are ready to unmount the TiVo drive with the “Three-finger salute” (CTRL-ALT-DEL), wait for the PC to reboot, then power it down and move the TiVo drive back to it’s home!

17. Ok, here is the Final step, if all goes well, you should have a BASH prompt! Connect your new serial cable to the Serial port on your PC, and open a standard VT-100 type terminal communication package such as HYPERTERM or MINICOM, being sure to set the PC’s port to 9600-8-N-1. Test the setup by using something metal to short the first 2 contacts (the small tip and little ring after it) on the 1/8” plug on the other end of the cable. When you type on the PC, and that bridge is in place on the 1/8” connector, you should see all the characters “come back” (echo) to you. If you don’t, troubleshoot your COM port setup, and/or cabling. Now plug the 1/8” plug into the back of the TiVo where it is labeled “Serial”. Restore power to the TiVo and watch the PC. Right before the TiVo changes from “Welcome. Powering up..” to “Almost There” you should see this:
bash: no job control in this shell
bash-2.02#
Now you should be able to “move around” in your TiVo. Be careful not to invoke any commands that do not auto-terminate, as there is no job control on this shell! (Can’t CTRL+C to stop them).

CONGRATULATIONS, You are a TiVo Hacker! =)

My next “installment” to this section will be how to add the USB Ethernet support. I have to go out and get one of those 3-Com USB Ethernet adapters, first! Once I get that done, I will try and add a TivoWEB “How-to” for the HDVR2.

If you are going to “experiment”, it might be a good idea to go backup your TiVo drive again first. Use the same procedure as outlined in steps 8-10, except I recommend you choose another file name instead of tivo-2.bak. Maybe hacked-2.bak instead. (if you have the space). Then you can play around and learn without fear of really hurting anything. You also have the option of the “original” TiVo drive if you took my advice. ;-)

Also note that you can only modify stuff in /var. Everything else is mounted Read-only by the TiVo. Besides, even if you did, since we are running an unmodified system, the TiVo would do away with any changes at boot time.

Have fun, and Good Luck!


Last edited by Ingineer on 12-31-2002 at 12:06 PM

[dogbreath]

Has anyone been able to install an editor on the HDVR2?

[Ego]

I've been hacking TiVos for years now, but I'm never the guy who comes up with the methods, I'm the guy who says "Aha, they got it working, time to implement it". So I changed over from two Sony SVR-2000 units to two HDVR2 units a few months back. I remember following the thread on tivocommunity.com about hacking these guys, but the last time I checked, it required you to socket your PROM, then get a new PROM chip that is flashable, then do all the hack stuff, AND you had to have a specific version of the TiVo software installed (an older version).

After reading this how-to, it makes no mention of requiring an older version of the tivo software, and certainly doesn't talk about changing the PROM and such. Have these requirements been alleviated? I was holding off on hacking my units because they're both doing full-time duty, and I didn't want to have to start soldering and mucking with the innards of either of these. I have tons of saved recordings too, so reverting to an older version of the software (I know for a fact both units have a newer version than what was required, according to the tivocommunity.com thread I was reading) is out of the question.

So am I to understand that anyone with an HDVR2, regardless of what version of the TiVo software is on it, can do these steps and successfully get bash back, and more importantly, tivoweb? I've been dyyyyyyyyyyyyying to get tivoweb back, so this would, as they say, "make my day".

Any clarification on these points?

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by Ego
After reading this how-to, it makes no mention of requiring an older version of the tivo software, and certainly doesn't talk about changing the PROM and such. Have these requirements been alleviated?

reverting to an older version of the software is out of the question.

So am I to understand that anyone with an HDVR2, regardless of what version of the TiVo software is on it, can do these steps and successfully get bash back, and more importantly, tivoweb? I've been dyyyyyyyyyyyyying to get tivoweb back, so this would, as they say, "make my day".

no offence, but did you even read the first post in this thread? the only bash_envable version of the tivo software for the hdvr2 is 3.1.U5. if you want to use another version, your only option is to perform the prom socket mod.

as with all the other tivos, regardless of whats on there now, you can restore an image of whatever

[Ego]

When you say "did you read the first post of this thread", well yes, I did, but this is a HUGE thread, and a lot could have changed since January, when that post was first made by yourself.

If you meant the first post in the how-to guide that was just posted, yes, I read that too, and it said he was BASING the instructions on the U5 version, it said nothing about REQUIRING the U5 version. That's why I asked.

Sorry to have bothered you.

[tivosohn]

MrBlack51,

I followed all the instructions I can find on this thread and other ones, but still couldn't find a solution. Anyway, here's my problem. I did everything as you posted on the first post of this thread. Then I plug the drive back into the dtivo, after I restarted the machine, I get the following message in my HyperTerminal:

Output enabled
Ram size = 64
Service number is 0000000000000. (real number appears)
What is password?


And on the TV it's stuck on the powering up screen. Any idea what I should check or any guesses on what I have done wrong? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks...

[txag93]

Make sure you didn't move any jumpers on the original drive, or if using a new drive, make sure jumpered for CS or master.

Finally, try disconnecting the serial port until you get to the almost there screen. I have seen a few instances where I got into that dialogue when my serial terminal was set for 115200 and I booted while connected. Not sure why, just some things to try.



Originally posted by tivosohn


Output enabled
Ram size = 64
Service number is 0000000000000. (real number appears)
What is password?

And on the TV it's stuck on the powering up screen. Any idea what I should check or any guesses on what I have done wrong? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

[tivosohn]

Super thanks for the tips, txag93. My problem was the combination of jumper and the serial cable, for some reason my HDVR2 doesn't like my WD 80GB's jumper set at "master". It likes it when I set it at "CS". Also, if I boot up the dtivo with the serial cable plugged in and set it at higher baud rate than 9600, it gives me that problem. Everything works fine and I got the bash if I set it to 9600 and CS.

thanks.:p

[Michigan1]

OK, I've been working on my mod and all has gone extermely well until I try and do this:



Did you modify your rc.sysinit?


in your hackinit you should be doing this...

# replace rc.sysinit with modified copy
rm -rf /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
cp /var/hack/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit


copy rc.sysinit to /var/hack and comment out the references to software upgrades... Your box will download em and then throw em away... Would be nice to keep em from downloading completely, but for now this works...





Whn I go to my etc/rc.d folder I only find two files:
rc.S and rc.inet1.


No rc.sysinit????? ANY THOUGHTS?

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by Michigan1
Whn I go to my etc/rc.d folder I only find two files:
rc.S and rc.inet1.

No rc.sysinit????? ANY THOUGHTS?

i am assuming you are using the boot disk. if you start out in root (/) and then cd etc/rc.d, then you will get the bootcd's rc.d folder. if you mount your tivo partition as /mnt, you need to do a cd /mnt/etc/rc.d

[Michigan1]

MrBlack-

OK, that was also my first thought...let me go into more detail.

I boot from disk. I only have the tivo drive attached.....

If I mount /dev/hdd /cdrom and then cd /cdrom and go into the etc folder I see the two files (That would be on the CD obviously)

I then mount my drive by:

mount /dev/hda9 /mnt/tivo

I can then cd to mnt/tivo and see another etc folder (along with others) if I cd into the etc folder and do ls I see nothing. If I cd from the mnt/tivo to my hack folder I can see/edit my files with no problem.

I determined the mount for hda9 by doing the bootpage -p /dev/hda


Do I need to be going to another partition or ?

TIA!!!!!

[mrblack51]

hda9 is the var partition. you want hda4 or hda7, which is what bootpage should have indicated was root. also, as stated in all the faqs and such, the 'a' in hda reffers to which drive on the chain it is. make sure if you don't have your main tivo drive as primary master to adjust the appropriate commands from /dev/hda# to /dev/hdX#with X being the drive letter and # being the partition number

[tivosohn]

Need Help Again...

I am not sure what happened. After I clean things up using the clear and delete option from the DTivo. After it's done and reboot, the machine doesn't get past the "Almost there" screen. But it does give me a bash prompt tho. Any idea what happened? Or is there a way to see what caused the boot up to stuck at that screen? By the way, I did try to let it sit at that screen overnight. Please help.

Thanks.

[Michigan1]

I'm up and going now without any problems but I wonder if there is a listing of the files by partition available anywhere? I read a whole bunch before I started any hacking and overall it paid of with very few problems for me but I sure don't recall seeing a listing anywhre.

[FireNGlory]

I just bought a HDVR2 and am very curious as to its potential... I have been checking that link to the How To at TiVoCommunity from the first post but it has been down... Does anyone have an offline copy of that thread? Any other source to that information? My first question, though, is whether I can make my HDVR2 work with my HU card? Apparantly it won't in it's current state. Is that part of the initial hack, or am I just SOL without a P4 card?

TIA,
FnG

[tivosohn]

Look for the 3 posts by wkendrvr in this thread.

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by FireNGlory
My first question, though, is whether I can make my HDVR2 work with my HU card? Apparantly it won't in it's current state. Is that part of the initial hack, or am I just SOL without a P4 card

did you read the faq that is stickied?

[FireNGlory]

Sorry, missed that FAQ about the P3's... What about the "How To" that is currently unavailable from TiVoCommunity? Any links to similar info?

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by FireNGlory
Sorry, missed that FAQ about the P3's... What about the "How To" that is currently unavailable from TiVoCommunity? Any links to similar info?

tivoshn answered that question, but i also added a link in the first post of this thread

[tivosohn]

I think I am a bit lost on the TivoWeb connection from reading too many threads. :( Anyway, my question is, will this work with serial bash cable? Or it only works with ethernet cable? I can't believe 50% of my drive fills up in less than 1 week. :D

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by tivosohn
I think I am a bit lost on the TivoWeb connection from reading too many threads. :( Anyway, my question is, will this work with serial bash cable? Or it only works with ethernet cable? I can't believe 50% of my drive fills up in less than 1 week. :D

you can't use tivoweb with bash via serial. if you only want to use serial, then you will need to set up ppp via serial, which is a pain compared to just getting a usb ethernet adapter.

oh, anbd 35 hours is not that much recording time, as you have evidently found out.

[nitrous]

Hi folks,

I've got my HDVR2 running with bash but I don't seem to be getting very far beyond that. My system gets stuck at "Almost there. A few more seconds..." but goes no further.

My Hackinit is as follows (and it is in /var/hack):

#!/bin/bash
date>>/var/hack/hackinit.log
PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:/tvbin:.
TIVO_ROOT=
MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10
IGNOREEOF=1000
export PATH TIVO_ROOT MFS_DEVICE IGNOREEOF

/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&

sleep 60
echo "Calling FixSub..." > /dev/ttyS2
/var/hack/callfixsub.tcl &

insmod /diag/usbcore.o
insmod /diag/usb-ohci.o
insmod /diag/pegasus.o
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.97 broadcast 192.168.1.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
#route add default gw 192.168.1.1 netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1
tnlited 23 /bin/bash -login &
tivoftpd

mount -o remount,rw /

# replace dssapp with HU copy
rm -rf /tvbin/dssapp
cp /var/hack/dssapp /tvbin/dssapp
chmod 777 /tvbin/dssapp

# replace rc.sysinit with modified copy
rm -rf /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
cp /var/hack/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

I hope to run a USB connection eventually, but for now... I would just like to get the darn thing to boot.

Any suggestions?

tnx
n|trous

[wkendrvr]

# replace rc.sysinit with modified copy
rm -rf /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
cp /var/hack/rc.sysinit /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit


ok FOLKS, you have to understand the reason why this is here.


First, off you HAVE to have a copy of rc.sysinit in /var/hack if you do not, what will happen is the first line will delete the real one, then the second line will fail cuz there is nothing to copy!! (and it won't ever get going cuz it doesn't have an rc.sysinit anymore!!)

The reason you are adding this step is to keep you DTivo from using the downloaded software updates. You will need to edit rc.sysinit as previously mentioned by Mr. Black.

[nitrous]

Thanks wkendrvr,

The hardware, in case it matters is a WD Caviar drive 120gig with 8mb buffer. wd120jb


I'm still having trouble. I copied the rc.sysinit to the /var/hack directory (a "Homer Simpson" moment) and added stty sane and stty 115200 to the hackinit as follows:

#!/bin/bash
date>>/var/hack/hackinit.log
PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:/tvbin:.
TIVO_ROOT=
MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10
IGNOREEOF=1000
export PATH TIVO_ROOT MFS_DEVICE IGNOREEOF

stty sane
stty 115200

/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&

etc etc (as in previous post)

When I boot up, it slowly makes its way from the initial screen to the 'almost there' screen, but hangs at that moment. I get bash (as long as I don't connect the serial cable too early) but the port speed is 9600 (suggesting to me that the hackinit that I have placed in /var/hack isn't being read). Is there somewhere stupid I have missed putting Hackinit?

Thanks,
n|trous

[nitrous]

Well, after adding a few comment lines to this hackinit to tell me where I was, and after commenting out all the stuff about the tivoweb connections, I find that dssapp does seem to be copied over, and so too does rc.sysinit. Problem is that it still hangs at "almost there" screen.
I have my drive set at master and have also tried at Cable Select.

I renamed the update file (as per MrBlack51's alternative method of preventing updates). any obvious mistakes at this point?

Thanks folks,
n|trous

[tivosohn]

Check your PM.

[sarahvesa]

Well, after adding a few comment lines to this hackinit to tell me where I was, and after commenting out all the stuff about the tivoweb connections, I find that dssapp does seem to be copied over, and so too does rc.sysinit. Problem is that it still hangs at "almost there" screen.

I am having the same problem. Any ideas?

[rpl]

Sara,
If your using the same hackinit that nitrous posted, my guess is the order of the commands are not liked by TIVO. Try moving that sleep 60 seconds and fixsub to the end of your hackinit. Also add some echo "installing this or that " > /dev/ttyS2 commands to see how far you get. I would start by using the hackinit file MrBlack posted on the very first post, then add your additional hacks. Each time you modify your hackinit file just make sure you chmod it.

[hdvr2]

If I have 3.1.0-01-2-151, It doesn't look like I can use the script from Ingineer, right?
So, is it possible to get the other version somewhere?
THanks!

[rpl]

Do a search on U5. There is a FTP site listed somewhere that has a U5 image for download. Your best bet is to start with your current image, back it up, restore it and copy over the kernal from U5. Didn't you get this from reading Ingineer's or Mr Blacks posts?

[ericchile]

nitrous... or tivosohn did you ever get your WD drives to get past the almost there screen. I think I have the same problem.

[rpl]

Did you try to restore your original image onto your new WD drive and see if you can get it to boot before trying any hacks? Double check jumper settings.

Last night I was trying to install a new Maxtor drive and it was hanging at the almost th... screen also. I was trying to use an image downloaded that was already hacked. After a couple of hours playing with that I decided to just run though the steps listed here to get bash and was up in an hour. About the same amount of time it would have taken to do the "clear and reset"

hmm

[rpl]

oh, upgradesoftware=false doesnt do anything, since its never checked. i will look at the rc.sysinit to see what should be set.

The updateSoftware.tcl file has that S capitalized. Would that make any difference to the command in the boot parm?

[Liam1965]

OK, folks, I'm as green as it gets with regard to this stuff. However, I have an HDVR2 with a 40gig hard drive, and a spare 160gig hard drive sitting around. Seems like a match made in heaven. While I'm at it, I figured I might as well accomplish all of these things at once:

o Upgrade the drive to 160gig
o Obtain a BASH prompt
o Make my Linksys wireless adapter work with the USB port
o In order to accomplish those two, change over th 31U5 and set it up so it doesn't automatically upgrade.

Eventually, I'd like to be able to extract video from it (nothing major, but I hate taking up TiVo space (or formerly ReplayTV space, which is what I'm replacing) just because there's a 3 minute section of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" that I find funny and would like to hold on to (and my VCR sucks badly enough that taping to VCR isn't really an option).

Anyway, I figure anything I need to do to the thing later, I should be able to do using the BASH prompt and the USB wireless with telnet.

So, I've read about 50 threads on this and a couple of other chat boards, and I've come up with the following list of steps. Before I actually take everything apart and try it, could someone tell me if this at least SEEMS like a reasonable set of steps?

1) Put TiVo drive (40gig) and new drive (160 gig) into PC.
2) Boot with the Hinsdale boot CD (the version with bootpage and genromfs included).
3) dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k (hdc is TiVo drive, hdd is new drive)
4) Shut down PC.
5) Pull TiVo and new drives, put in blank 40+gig drive, boot.
6) Boot with CD.
7) Restore 31U5 image to new drive
mfsrestore -s 127 -xbzpi <31U5 mfs file> /dev/hdc
8) Shut down PC.
9) Put new TiVo drive in as master (hdc), 40 gig 31U5 drive in as hdd.
10) dd if=/dev/hdd6 of=/dev/hdc6
11) mfsadd -x /dev/hdc
12) Reboot machine, taking note of last /hdcXX, which will have a blank line after the name, and follow a line with "Apple Free" on the line.
13) Mount the CD-Rom and change directory into it.
14) img/bootpage -p /dev/hdc (verify that it says root=/dev/had7)
15) Mount /dev/hdc9 to /mnt/tivo
16) img/genromfs -f /romfs.img -d img/
(Or is / still the CD-Rom? Do I need another location to write to?)
17) dd if=/romfs.img of=/dev/hdcXX bs=1024 count=1 (where XX is the same XX we found in step 12)
18) mkdir /mnt/tivo/hack
19) mkdir /mnt/tivo/hack/bin
20) cp -p /cdrom/devbin-s2/* /mnt/tivo/hack/bin
21) Make my hackinit file as follows:
cat > /mnt/tivo/hack/hackinit
#! /bin/bash
date>>/var/hack/hackinit.log
PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:.
/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&
insmod /diag/usbcore.o
insmod /diag/usb-ohci.o
insmod /diag/pegasus.o
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.200 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask \
255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.0.3 netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1
tnlited 23 /bin/bash -login &
22) chmod -R 777 /mnt/tivo/hack
23) bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 BASH_ENV=\`mount\$IFS/dev/hdaXX\$IFS/mnt;echo\$IFS/mnt/hacks\`" -C /dev/hdc (again, XX is as determined a while back)
24) Reboot, and turn off computer once everything shuts down.
25) Put new TiVo drive into my machine...

So the quesiton is, will step 26 be "Rejoice that it all worked perfectly and I now have 160gigs of space and a working bash prompt and can telnet in" or will it be "Cry, because something screwed up, and it doesn't work at all"?

Also, I seem to have lost the step that prevents the TiVo from upgrading the software. Can anyone suggest what that might be?

I think that's everything for now. As I said, I gathered all of this by reading lots of different threads, so it's perfectly possible that one or more of these hacks is incompatible with each other. I certainly won't hold anyone accountable if they read through this and think it should work and it doesn't, but if I've got something wrong in here, it sure would be nice to know it BEFORE I'm elbows deep in TiVo guts.

Thanks.

[rpl]

Not quite.

Step 1 & 2 I think you are going to backup your existing Tivo drive and restore it to the new 160 gig drive that is ok. I'm not sure of your method but you want to make a back up of your existing TIVO and restore it.

Step 3 isn't going to work there. ??

Restoring the U5 image to a 40 gig may or may not work. Not all 40 gig drives are the same size. Also don't expand the U5 disk when trying to restore it to a 40 gig I think you need to get rid of the -s and the -x switches. You can experiment to see what works for your hardware.

Interesting that you want to do step 10 before you check and see what partition you should use on step 14

In your hackinit your missing TIVO_ROOT, MFS_DEVICE, IGNOREEOF, export statements

Also I read you should put in at least a slight delay before you load the pegasus.o file. maybe a Sleep 4

Step 21a CTRL+D

Also you mention that you would like to evenually do video extraction so you should also find the thread for kmem, download that file and add kmem 800b23b4 to your hackinit file to stop the video from being scrambled

[rpl]

This is covered earlier in this thread. Two methods. You can copy your updateSoftare.tcl file to your hackinit directory and rename it then delete the original file. Or you can comment out the lines that call this file in your rc.sysinit. If you want to modify your rc file then you will need to put the approp commands in your hackinit.

Also I forgot to mention when you write your hackinit file I would add at least one echo command.

echo "Starting Hackinit ... " > /dev/ttyS2

[Liam1965]

Thanks, RPL.

Most of the things you point out were typos (I wrote down all the steps I wanted to take on my laptop in two of three different files, and then typed them over into the post while merging).

Just to be certain here, though:

>Step 1 & 2 I think you are going to backup your existing Tivo
> drive and restore it to the new 160 gig drive that is ok. I'm
> not sure of your method but you want to make a back up
> of your existing TIVO and restore it.
>
> Step 3 isn't going to work there. ??

According to Hinsdale's HOW-TO, steps 1-3 will work in lieu of making the copy. It does a full copy of the existing TiVo drive onto the new drive, preserving all shows and everything. Hinsdale says it's slow, but will work in one step, rather than using several steps and the backup tool to accomplish the same thing. I decided to go that route because I'm not in a hurry and because I have a tendency to trust lower level functions like "dd" over higher level ones (even though later on I'm trusting those higher ones for other purposes).

(Keep in mind that since I'm not modifying the original TiVo drive at all, it becomes my de facto backup)

However, if you're certain it won't work that way, I will modify my steps. (?)

> Restoring the U5 image to a 40 gig may or may not work.
> Not all 40 gig drives are the same size.

OK, the spare drive I have is actually an 80gig drive which I'd previously used to upgrade my ReplayTV, but your point is well taken.

> Also don't expand the U5 disk when trying to restore it to a
> 40 gig I think you need to get rid of the -s and the -x switches.
> You can experiment to see what works for your hardware.

Cool, this is something I definitely didn't know. I'll spend a little more time looking at mfsrestore and the args before continuing!

> Interesting that you want to do step 10 before you check and
> see what partition you should use on step 14

Another typo. I was consolidating two lists of instructions, and steps 10 and 11 were definitely supposed to follow step 14, good catch, thanks!

> In your hackinit your missing TIVO_ROOT, MFS_DEVICE,
> IGNOREEOF, export statements

Hmmmmm. Can you tell me what these statements should look like?

> Also I read you should put in at least a slight delay before
> you load the pegasus.o file. maybe a Sleep 4

Again, thanks!

> Step 21a CTRL+D

Yeah, it's in my notes. Another typo. But good call, thanks!

> Also you mention that you would like to evenually do video
> extraction so you should also find the thread for kmem,
> download that file and add kmem 800b23b4 to your hackinit
> file to stop the video from being scrambled

Yeah, I actually have kmem and was going to play with it later, once I got all of this done. But I figured if I can get to the point where I can telnet to a BASH prompt on my machine, I can always do things like adding kmem later.

Thanks a great deal, however, for taking the time to answer a newbie's questions!

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by Liam1965
> In your hackinit your missing TIVO_ROOT, MFS_DEVICE,
> IGNOREEOF, export statements

Hmmmmm. Can you tell me what these statements should look like?


check the first post in the thread

[rpl]

Your welcome good luck I think you'll do OK.

If the dd of your original drive gives you the apple_free and the blank partition go for it. I know backing up and restoring works, don't know about this method. I didn't go back and read Hinsdale. You'll know soon enough if it doesn't work.

Also if your actually using an 80 gig drive go ahead and leave the -xzbpi. Not going to hurt anything

[Liam1965]

OK, I finally got all of the tools necessary to perform the steps I listed, and I've gotten some odd results. Some of them sound familiar from things I've seen people post before, but for the life of me I can't seem to find those posts or how people say they got around them...

First off, the success part: I have gone from a 35 hour TiVo to a 200 hour one.

However, whenever I boot my new, larger TiVo, it hits the "Welcome" screen for a bit, then reboots itself, THEN it boots fine. I *BELIEVE* that it is recognizing the changes I made to rc.sysinit and is correcting them and re-booting.

When it boots, under system information, I get software version 1.3.2.... whatever it came with, *NOT* 1.3.U5..... I've re-copied the partition 6 from the 1.3.U5 image several times, but after the power-up...reboot...power up sequence, it still thinks it's 1.3.2.....

The hack and hack/bin directories are NOT being deleted (thank goodness, that was one fear I had, having read someone's response to that effect).

Lastly, with regard to the USB port, my LinkSys wireless adapter's power light now goes on, but I'm unable to get any response.

From my Linux box, here are the results of several commands:

>telnet 192.168.0.200
Trying 192.168.0.200...
telnet: connect to address 192.168.0.200: No route to host

> ftp 192.168.0.200
ftp: connect: No route to host

> ping 192.168.0.200
PING 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) from 192.168.0.3 : 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.0.3: Destination Host Unreachable
<same message repeats until I kill PING>


My initial thought is that either the system really is still at 3.1.2...., and the light on the wireless adapter is a red herring, or I'm correctly at 3.1.U5, and either the adapter isn't working right, or the instructions for getting a bash prompt had something specific in them for getting said prompt through the serial prompt, and there are some other steps I need to take to get said prompt through the USB wireless port.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks,

Will.

[Liam1965]

Bleah, I've been awake too long. Of course I meant 3.1.U5 and 3.1.2, not 1.3.U5 and 1.3.2....

Will.

[DblDamage]

You're getting ahead of yourself. You have to do step A before you do step B,C, and D.

If you haven't already, make yourself a serial cable and make sure that you are getting a bash prompt. If BASH_ENV isn't working, nothing else will.

You also might want to check your bootpage setting to make sure Tivo isn't rolling over to the other kernel.

Good Luck,

DblDamage

[Liam1965]

The problem is, I don't like wiring in a serial port. I'm pretty good with software hacking and the like, and really basic hardware like swapping hard drives, but when it comes to splicing in a new port, I'm just not comfortable doing it.

Is there no way to get the bash prompt through the USB port and a telnet session without first wiring in that serial port?

[rpl]

You will have 3.1... reported on the system screen not U5 so that is OK

Since your trying to use a wireless adapter my guess would be your using the wrong driver. I've seen some posts on people using ax.....o driver instead of pegasus.o

Also seen some posts where they needed a small delay before the ifconfig eth0 statement.

Do a search here and AVS

Good luck

[rpl]

If you want to use bash to make changes instead of pulling your drive buy a cable from one of the vendors such as 9Tee

[DblDamage]

Originally posted by Liam1965
The problem is, I don't like wiring in a serial port. I'm pretty good with software hacking and the like, and really basic hardware like swapping hard drives, but when it comes to splicing in a new port, I'm just not comfortable doing it.

It is unbelievably simple to make a cable. Only three wires, no soldering necessary, don't have to open your tivo or computer.

I thought I was going to be able to get by without one, but I was wrong. It sure solved a lot of headaches! Buy one pre-made if you have to. Well worth it.

DblDamage

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by Liam1965
OK, folks, I'm as green as it gets with regard to this stuff. However, I have an HDVR2 with a 40gig hard drive, and a spare 160gig hard drive sitting around. Seems like a match made in heaven. While I'm at it, I figured I might as well accomplish all of these things at once:

o Upgrade the drive to 160gig

the tivo can't accept drives larger than 137gb by default, so while it looks like you will end up with 200 hrs of space, you will have problems in the future.

[Liam1965]

Ah. My mistake. I have 120 hours right now. I *WILL* have over 200 when I add the second, 120gb drive. With the 160 gb drive, I get 137gb usage, or 120 hours. The 120 should be over a hundred, and give me a total of over 200, but I haven't added it yet, in case I need it to restore the 3.1.U5 again.

However, someone pointed out what may be my problem with the pegasus.o driver: Someone had told me I needed to put a 4 second pause BEFORE loading pegasus.o. Sounds like it's supposed to be AFTER pegasus.o but BEFORE the ifconfig.

So I guess I'll try that next.

And if it's that easy to make a serial cable, perhaps I'll look into that, if the USB port option still doesn't work.

Thanks loads for all the help, people!

Will.

[Liam1965]

OK, I got my serial cable, and now I know why I can't connect through the USB wireless....

I tried manually issuing the "ifconfig eth0 ...." command, and the response was:

SI0CSIFADDR: No such device
eth0: unknown interface.
SC0CSIFBRDADDR: No such device
eth0: unknown interface.
SI0CSIFNETMASK: No such device

Any thoughts?

[Liam1965]

Got it!!!

I had to insmod:

usbcore.o
usb-ohci.o
usbdfu.o
at76c503.o
at76c503-rfmd.o netdev_name=eth0

After that, the tnlited and tivoftpd work, and I can telnet and ftp!

Woo woo!

Thanks to everyone!

Will.

[latitude45]

I have a Siemens usb wlan adapter. When my HDVR2 boots, I get a power light but no connection. When I insmod the ohci module, it reboots.
Any ideas?

[areyes6]

hello I own a Hughes Tivo HDVR2 manufactured on March 02, 2003, and only accept the P4 card, could some tell me the steps to hack this to work with the Hu?
thanks!

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by areyes6
hello I own a Hughes Tivo HDVR2 manufactured on March 02, 2003, and only accept the P4 card, could some tell me the steps to hack this to work with the Hu?
thanks!

read the faq please

[Ozy666]

Ok, just a quick check on what needs to be modified in the rc.sysinit.

I found and commented out the upgrade software check. I also considered commenting out the cleaning of the /var partition to protect against getting the /var/hack directory deleted. However, since nobody has mentioned that section, I thought it might do more harm than good.

Is the upgrade software the only thing that needs modification?

Thanks,
Ozy

[wkendrvr]

If you use 2 120's, and you allow it to fill up you will have a couple of problems.

1. the menus will be painfully slow
2. you will run the risk of having it delete your hack partition


(number 2 can happen any time that it feels that it is too full)

[rpl]

Ok, just a quick check on what needs to be modified in the rc.sysinit. Seems like nothing should be changed in the rc.sysinit file.the only files which have replacements in the initrd are inittab, rc.arch, and rc.sysinit Seems that the TIVO executes its own version of the file when it detects the file was changed. You can follow this on the replace rc early or late thread.

[mrblack51]

Originally posted by rpl
Seems like nothing should be changed in the rc.sysinit file. Seems that the TIVO executes its own version of the file when it detects the file was changed. You can follow this on the replace rc early or late thread.

well, sort of. using straight bash_env, the initrd will always replace a modified rc.sysinit or rc.arch. the problem with replacing the rc.sysinit in hackinit is that it doesnt happen soon enough apparently, so changes won't run. as rpl mentioned, this is all discussed in that thread.

[Waymond Trimmer]

Delete me, Im a dumbass and posted in the wrong thread.

[anthony415]

Should the System Info show 3.1.0-01-2-151 or 3.1.u5-01-2-151? I've been following the guide serveral times and one point I got 3.1.u5-01-2-151 on the system info. After several time, now it's show 3.1.0-01-2-151 and I can't get bash to work at all. I had serial working once until i added some more lines in the hackinit. The serial cable i have work, tested it on a series 1 tivo.

Here's what i did after I restored the 3.1.0-01-2-151 to a 120gb drive, mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/c/<3.1.0-01-2-151> /dev/hdc

bootpage -p /dev/hdc reply root=/dev/hda7

dd if=/mnt/c/disk2/dt2_U5kernel.img of=/dev/hdc6
genromfs -f /romfs.img -d img/
dd if=/romfs.img of=/dev/hdc16 bs=1024 count=1

bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 BASH_ENV=\`mount\$IFS-n\$IFS/dev/hda16\$IFS/mnt;echo\$IFS/mnt/hacks\`" -C /dev/hdc

hackinit shows

#!/bin/bash

date >>/var/hack/hackinit.log

PATH=/var/hack/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tivobin:/tvbin:.

#Environmental variables

TIVO_ROOT=

MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10

IGNOREEOF=1000

export PATH TIVO_ROOT MFS_DEVICE IGNOREEOF

/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2&


What am I missing? I have all the files in the /var/hack. I tried the u5-151-hacked.mfs and it get stuck on the almost there screen.

[anthony415]

I was using damn u5 image. System info now shows 3.1.u5-01-2-151.

[roach]

Originally posted by mrblack51
for some reason, I wasn't able to restore the image I pulled off my original drive back to my original drive. I kept getting errors saying that my drive was too small for the image (yes, i didnt use the -s 127 flag). After grabbing another 40gb drive that was slightly larger, all went fine

Has anyone else run into this? I'm trying to monte my system (accidentally dowloaded the "upgrade" for the HDVR2) and want to use the old drive to put the u5 image on so that I could pull the proper kernel and filesystems partitions off of it. I can't use the downloaded u5 image or the image that I made off of the original drive :(.

[cobelli]

Not sure of the solution to that problem, however if you give me a few more days to sure everything up, you can expect to find a complete monte guide along with u5 kernel and fs images up on my site.

Cobelli

[Lost Dog]

Originally posted by cobelli
Not sure of the solution to that problem, however if you give me a few more days to sure everything up, you can expect to find a complete monte guide along with u5 kernel and fs images up on my site.

Cobelli

Talk about timing! I got the software update the other day so my hacks have been wiped out. I was not using monte but rather the u5 kernel replacement technique. Now that the hacks were 'upgraded' by DirecTV I decided this would be a good time to try the monte version.

Thank you for all your effort!!!

Now to prep myself for the monte, should I go a head and do the u5 kernel replacement again? I've read through the monte thread but that is a novel in discovery and a lot of info to assimilate at one time.

I hope your guide will include how to keep recordings intact!

Thanks again!

[scottym]

Hi,

I have the tcl version of tivoweb 1.94 loaded on my hdvr2 (3.1.1c/monte) tivo and I can't seem to get the folders module (folders.itcl) to work. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what functionality folders adds to my tivo. I was hoping it would give me the ability to create folders and organize my recordings in my tivo Now Playing List. I've copied the file to my /var/hacks/tivoweb-tcl/modules directory and restarted my tivo (not just tivoweb) and I don't see any new capabilities. Perhaps this only let's you organize recordings for viewing Now Showing in through the web interface.


Scott

[TiVo-Thom]

Not sure of the solution to that problem, however if you give me a few more days to sure everything up, you can expect to find a complete monte guide along with u5 kernel and fs images up on my site.

Cobelli

Is this history or a bad xtal-ball read?

[scottym]

Hi,

I have a HDVR2 expanded to two hardrives and running various hacks: (mfs_tools) tytools, vserver, etc. I can sucessfully use tytools to extract ty files from my tivo using mplayer. This works fine. I attempted to use tystudio to load a local ty file and it crashes tystudio while loading. I used tystudio to dump the tivo's Now Playing List and it complains it can't connect. Ideally, I would like to know if other users with similar equipment and software tools have been able to edit ty files using tystudio. If this approach just isn't meant to be, are there any other tools I should look at? All suggestions welcome.

thanks,

scott mollica

[Waruwaru]

Is this history or a bad xtal-ball read?

I think the post is obsolete now. People are using the Sleeper script to perform Monte these days.

[Waruwaru]

Hi,

I have a HDVR2 expanded to two hardrives and running various hacks: (mfs_tools) tytools, vserver, etc. I can sucessfully use tytools to extract ty files from my tivo using mplayer. This works fine. I attempted to use tystudio to load a local ty file and it crashes tystudio while loading. I used tystudio to dump the tivo's Now Playing List and it complains it can't connect. Ideally, I would like to know if other users with similar equipment and software tools have been able to edit ty files using tystudio. If this approach just isn't meant to be, are there any other tools I should look at? All suggestions welcome.

thanks,

scott mollica

What type of editing are you planning to do in TyStudio? Have you tried the GOPEditor in the latest TyTool? See this link for step by step (http://themurrays.homeip.net/downloads/tivo/extraction_articles/tivo_dvd.html)

[TiVo-Thom]

OK, I admit it, I need guidance! I lurk alot, try to follow the promnent threads, spent a few months on emule, "D/L-ing " anything that comes up HDVR2, but I am so overwhelmed with all of the info, I don't know where to start! I got 2 HDVR2s, upgraded both to dual HDDs one of the units lost a drive (and ALL of my favorite shows :eek: ) So after a month of trying to save my stuff I gave up. Mentioned here that I wanted to expand my capabilities to export to DVD my favorite show, instead of gambling they would not get lost in my D-TiVo. I saved up my $s and am ready to buy 2 of the largest drives I can use in my HDVR2. What image and hacks do I need to best suit my needs? Have LAN I want to put this on and a nice HTPC with DVD burner and TONS of HDD space (Big RAID) any pity out there for me, please suggest what I need and documentation to apply the hacks properly! Thanks so much!

[Waruwaru]

Tivo-Thom, For HDVR2, I suggest you to read the Sleeper thread completely. After you actually hack your DTivo, read about TyTools, mfs_ftp, TivoWebPlus.

[TiVo-Thom]

Thanks Waruwaru, that isn't exactly what I was hoping to get for a response for several reasons: 1st, what is the title of this thread anyway?? 2nd, usually one of two things happen when one makes a post like I did, either they are completely ignored; the case when a straight answer is controversial and/or there is no right answer, or a decent informative thread comes to life. The reason I am here is to learn from folks that have accomplished something through trial and error. If everyone wants everyone else to do the same trial and error, might as well get rid of this board! But there are individuals, afraid to do a thing, mainly because of lack of experience or lack of time to dedicate, or both (both as I work 100 or more hrs a week making things like this board possible for you). A simple use image “xxx” locate item “1” and item “2” and go to URL “xxx” for the best procedure would have helped. But that won’t happen if everyone is afraid to get some controversial responses from peers who think there way is better. That’s what I wanted to see. By submitting this post I have likely caused a thread to start that has NOTHING to do with TiVo experimentation at all, I hope I am wrong. I appreciate your minimal suggestion, but you know, I have at least 10 images, 6 copies of the Sleeper scripts, along with nearly 3 more gigs of TiVo st