I'm new.. DTV Phillips DSR-708

[interex]

I have just got a DSR-708, 80gb, Series 2 -- 6.2-xx firmware.. I'm needing to know the 'steps' to take to get things going so i can copy movies off, or maybe even hook an external dvd drive to and burn off dvds?? (if thats even possible)... I have read lots of different posts and i'm still not understanding what i must do.. I run linux natively so i understand how this works.. I've hooked my TiVo drive to my pc and it tells me that the drive doesnt contain a valid partition table. What must i do to the drive once its hooked to my PC? Any thing i need to copy to it, anything needed to edit? how to access it.. specifics would be nice instead of "read here <link>" plz..

[Narf54321]

First, you should realize that nobody on this site is going to write you a dissertation just for your benefit.

There are ways to copy the 'chunks' from the Tivo drive, but I'll warr you it isn't necessarily easy.

To see the proprietary MFS partitions (where recordings are stored), you probably want to start with the tivopart tool (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25219) so you can load the funky partition table. You don't need the whole repartitioning archive, just tivopart.

A question comes to mind about whether you've already "hacked" the tivo and whether shows are still encrypted or not. That makes a difference in what steps you need to take. Check the stickies here in the Newbie and Extraction (http://dealdatabase.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48) sections.

And for the sake of completeness...
read here link (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37058) plz.

[interex]

no i've not hacked it yet.. i'm totally new.. just received the DVR and went into the settings and saw what OS was on it.. its stock as far as i know.. i dont care about the movies on it now.. i care about the stuff i'll record down the road. i just want to know what steps must be taken on the unit. I downloaded the sleeper iso and have booted it up and hooked up my drive as it requests but i dont have a FAT32 drive so i'm going to the garage to dig out an old 4gb i have laying around. i'm totally new so i'm just going by what i read. I'll do the full monte from sleeper and i guess replace it back into the tivo and try the next steps i've come across by hooking up my usb/ethernet adapter.

anymore hints, or ideas?

[interex]

well i did the "sleeper iso" thing and after applying the hacks i put the hdd back in my tivo and a minute after the "powering up" screen it goes black then gets lines in the screen.. i guess i broke it... wonderful i guess :( now what?

[Narf54321]

Argh! JT1134 told you in the other thread not to sleeper it! Sleeper is way out of date and his stupid CD eventually got him banned on this site.

The good news is that hard drives (HDD) are easy to replace on a Tivo. The bad news is you just borked your only working install. Now you need to track down AlphaWolf's 6.2 minimal image (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=216601#post216601) (or go to DVRupgrade.com and buy Instant Cake) to restore your drive.

Prepare to get your Learn On!

[interex]

Funny.. I dont have EDonkey to download that *sigh* always something more.

[Narf54321]

I'd recommend using eMule instead.

[interex]

I'd recommend using eMule instead.

Well I installed EMule and tagged that file.. and it wont start downloading.. i've never had to use this crap since i dont mess with torents, and p2p... sheesh what a drag.

[whitepelican]

Interex, I'm feeling sorry for you, so consider this (http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=271627&postcount=929) a gift.

[zardano]

Ok interex, I'm feeling awfully generous tonight, so here's your step-by-step instructions to get you up and running. I understand you are trying to hack a Philips DSR-708, a series 2 DirecTivo.
You screwed up your drive using sleeper, nice going. The sleeper iso is deprecated and even if you got it to work, it uses monte and that's not the best method to hack your tivo in 2007, you need to use killhdinitrd on an exploitable kernel.

Background of what we are doing: The stock tivo kernel runs a process called "initrd" which scans the file system on the root partition and detects if anything is out of place, and wipes it out and reboots if it detects anything abnormal. Thus, you can't install any "hacks" or change the file structure without bypassing the initrd process. Enter killhdinitrd.
Killhdinitrd is a script that you run on an exploitable kernel that basically kills the initrd process so the files that you put on your tivo survive the boot process. As a bonus, your tivo boots faster since it doesn't spend time checking the integrity of the file system.

Setup Step 1: Since you screwed your drive, and since you probably didn't use mfslive to backup your image, you're going to need to install a fresh image. Download the 62small.mfs image (http://rapidshare.com/files/4977765/6.2.dtivo.minimal.AlphaWolf_HK.zip.html), which is not on emule so you wont have to bother with that. (click "Free" at the bottom, where it says "Select your download"). It will work on most S2 Dtivos, including your DSR-708.

Setup Step 2: Obtain an exploitable kernel, the virgin 7.2.2-oth-K1 kernel (http://rapidshare.com/files/4968969/vmlinux-series2-7.2.2-oth.k1-01-2.px.html) will work with software version 6.2. Note that even if you had not killed your drive, you would have needed to get this kernel because only a select few kernels are exploitable and work with killhdinitrd. You should check the md5 to verify that the download is good, MD5: fd71b861a767de9ad4a13dc5f78b6ae1 (check the MD5 with md5sums. (http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/md5sums/))

Setup Step 3: Get all of the support files you'll need.
3a) Get killhdinitrd-0.9.3.zip from this thread here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36692). Get tivotools.tar.7z here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37602), AlphaWolf's Series 2 binaries, or you wont be able to run any linux commands like ls and vi once you finally telnet in to your tivo. You should un-7zip the file so that it is just a tarball before you boot into mfslive, I do this with winrar, if you don't have a windows box then I dunno, search google for 7zip in linux. Good luck with that.
3b) Get NutKase's superpatch-67all-NutKase-1.1.zip. (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43325)
3c) Depending on your usb network adapter (you have one, right...?) you may need to install Jamie's backport usb drivers. (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38167) Follow the link to the latest package, the object code file usbobj2.4.27-20070328.tar.bz2. I have 2 adapters for wired ethernet, one is the netgear FA120, the other is the linksys usb200m. The FA120 works with the stock drivers, but only at usb1.0, which makes transfers slow (700k/sec). If you upgrade those drivers to Jamie's backport ones, you'll get faster transfers (~2MB/sec), but with the FA120 you don't have to worry about that until later. If you have the usb200m, you need the backport drivers to get it to work. If you have a different adapter, search the forums to see if its supported. If you need an adapter, many have recommended the $12 airlink usb 2.0 adapter. (http://www.outpost.com/product/4415686)

Setup Step 4: Now you need to figure out a way to get these files onto the computer you will be working with. I use, and recommend, a usb memory stick, they are cheap and work nicely. The 4GB drive will work fine, if you can find it in the garage, and since you're native to linux, getting the files on that drive and mounting it in linux shouldn't be a problem for you.

Setup Step 5: Go to mfslive.org, download the latest Linux boot CD, which is mfslive-1.3b.iso, and burn the iso to a CD. With your drives attached, boot from this CD.

For ease of discussion I will assume you have connected your Tivo 80GB drive as /dev/hda (master), and your 4GB garage drive as /dev/hdb (slave). If your configuration is different, make changes as necessary, or connect your drives in this fashion to follow the instructions verbatim.

To get an image on the drive:
Boot into MFSLive, and mount your drive with 62small on it, in the example I am using /dos as the mount point. Assuming your destination drive (the drive you will be running in the tivo) is hda, run this command (refer to mfslive.org for complete backup/restore instructions):
restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi /dos/62small.mfs /dev/hda
This should work, but a few drives I've tried had bad sectors, and I needed to format them and run e2fsck to mark bad blocks to get it to work. It might not be a bad idea to do that anyway ('mkfs -t ext2 /dev/hda' will format as ext2 and 'e2fsck -f /dev/hda' will force a check, but not in MFSLive, you'll need to boot into regular linux or use a linux boot CD like Knoppix)
Once the drive has been imaged, you need to boot it in the tivo and run through the guided setup. Also a good idea to get past the initial call. If you don't have a landline phone, but have a VoIP phone, it may or may not work (my comcast voip did, but my cordiaip did not). I had to play around with the dialing prefixes a lot to make the comcast VoIP call out successfully, I used three commas (pauses) to delay the call long enough for a dialtone.
With no phone access, getting past the initial call can be tricky. Running fakecall.tcl does not work on 6.2-6.3. You can try to find an older ver. 3 or 4 image file, hack it and run fakecall, and then upgrade to 6.2 with slices, but it would probably be easier to just bring the dtivo to a friend's house who has a landline, don't need satellite hooked up for this.

Once you get through guided setup, and ideally are past the initial call nonsense, you should make a backup image of the drive so you wont have to wait through all that again if you screw up from here. Boot into MFSLive and do this: backup -f 9999 -6so /dos/62small_DSR708_after_guided_setup.mfs /dev/hda This image can then be used on other series 2 dtivos, but when you boot up, it will complain about hardware errors, message #51. You have to run 51killer.tcl, located in AlphaWolf's AIO series 2 binaries, to remove this nag.

Getting a bash prompt: (NOTE: Do NOT do the following with a newly imaged 62small.mfs drive until AFTER you have gone through guided setup)
Boot into MFSLive, and mount your drive with the files on it, in the example I am using /dos as the mount point.

1) Unzip killhdinitrd-0.9.3.zip, it will make directory 'killhdinitrd-0.9.3', cd to this, and copy kernel image vmlinux-7.2.2-oth.px there. I rename this copy vmlinux-7.2.2-killhdinitrd.px so I know its been kill'ed. Then, using absolute path to make sure it runs on that file, run: /dos/killhdinitrd-0.9.3/killhdinitrd /dos/killhdinitrd-0.9.3/vmlinux-7.2.2-killhdinitrd.px
Type YES in caps, then you should see "new blocks = 00000d51" and "new image size = 001aa3e0" "Finished!"

2) Now you need to use the linux dd command to overwrite your existing kernel with this new one. To determine your active root partition (there are 2 sets, residing on hda4 and hda7, but only one is active), type: bootpage -p /dev/hda This will return "root=/dev/hda4 ..." so you know that is the active root partition. The KERNEL PARTITION for this root partition is on hda3 (kernel is hda6 if active root is hda7, but it wont be), so to overwrite the kernel type: dd if=/dos/killhdinitrd-0.9.3/vmlinux-7.2.2-killhdinitrd.px of=/dev/hda3
Again, here you really want to use absolute path to make sure this command works, its critical to get this right. It should return "3410+0 blocks in" and "3410+0 blocks out".

3) Now you need to update the boot parameters so that your tivo doesn't download the new software and upgrade your system, which might wipe out all your hard work. Run the 'bootpage -p /dev/hda' command again, and then add "upgradesoftware=false" at the end, with the command: bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda4 console=2,115200 dsscon=true upgradesoftware=false" -C /dev/hda
Note that if your tivo drive is not /dev/hda in your computer, you will still want to use "root=/dev/hda4" because when your drive is back in the tivo, it will be hda. You would just change /dev/hda to /dev/hdb or whatever at the end of that line, if you have it connected as something other than /dev/hda in your hacking computer.
Verify the update "took" by entering 'bootpage -p /dev/hda' again.

4) Mount your active root partition on /tivo (mount -t ext2 /dev/hda4 /tivo) and cd to /tivo/etc/rc.d, and type 'touch rc.sysinit.author'. type 'vi rc.sysinit.author', press 'i' once the file opens to insert text, and paste/type this script in there. #!/bin/bash

#Enviroment Variables
export PATH=/sbin:/bin:/tivotools:/tvbin:.
export TIVO_ROOT=
export MFS_DEVICE=/dev/hda10
export IGNOREEOF=1000
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/lib/modules
export TERM=xterm
export PS1='\h:\w$ '

#Setup HOSTNAME
hostname DSR708

#Enable BASH on serial port
exec /bin/bash --login </dev/ttyDSS&>/dev/ttyDSS&

#Open the firewall
iptables -F

#Load telnet daemon and ftp dameon
tnlited 23 /bin/bash -login &
tivoftpd&
Of course you can save it to a file beforehand, and if you do it in linux, it will work ok, but if you use notepad in windows you'll have to edit it in vi and delete some garbage characters.
Be sure to make the script executable: 'chmod 755 rc.sysinit.author'

5) Create folder /tivo/tivotools, put AlphaWolf's tivotools.tar in there. You will extract it later once the tivo is running and you are telneted in.

6) I create folder /tivo/hacks for all my other files, and just have /tivotools as my binaries folder with all the linux commands in it. Don't change this name, or you'll have to edit that PATH varaible in rc.sysinit.author. Copy the superpatch-67all zipfile to /tivo/hacks, and Jamie's usb drivers if you need them. Setting up the backport drivers is a bit of a pain, but necessary at this point if you don't have a usb adapter that will work with the stock drivers (only one I know of is the FA120 but I'm sure there are more). Even if you are using the FA120, you want to use the backport drivers since they triple your extraction speed and you mentioned you want to extract shows.

6.1) SETTING UP BACKPORT DRIVERS [this will work for FA120 and usb200m]:
i) Copy the usbobj2.4.27-20070328.tar.bz2 file to /tivo/hacks and unzip it with 'tar -xjvf usbobj2.4.27-20070328.tar.bz2'.
ii) cd to /tivo/lib/modules/
iii) mkdir /tivo/lib/modules/backup
iv) mv these files from /tivo/lib/modules to /tivo/lib/modules/backup:
usb-ohic.o
usbcore.o
usbnet.o
ax8817x.o

v) copy these newer backported files to the /tivo/lib/modules folder:
usbnet.o (in usb-2.4.27/obj/drivers/2.4.20)
usbcore.o (in usb-2.4.27/obj/hosts/2.4.20_Series2)
usb-ohci.o (in usb-2.4.27/obj/hosts/2.4.20_Series2)
ehci.dummy.o (in usb-2.4.27/obj/hosts/2.4.20_Series2)

vi) cd to /tivo/lib/modules if not already there
vii) make symlinks:
ln -s usbnet.o ax8817x.o (this will create a new ax8817x.o symlink)
ln -s ehci-dummy.o ehci-hcd.o (this will create a new ehci-hcd.o symlink)
viii) verify that the symlinks worked by typing 'ls -la' and it should display the new files in blue, with an -> to the linked file. You have to do shift+pgup to scroll up.
ix) cd to /tivo/etc/hotplug
x) This part is adapter-specifc. You may need to add the vend/prod of your adapter to the /tivo/etc/hotplug/usb.map file. You DO NOT have to add this for the Netgear FA120 or the usb200m version 1. For the Linksys usb200m version 2, you have to add the following under the "device ax8817x" section: product 13b1 0018 Linksys USB200M ver. 2
If you have a different adapter, search the forum for what vend/prod to enter, or, if you buy/build a serial cable (HIGHLY recommended) you can log the serial output on bootup and you can see what the vend/prod is then when usb.c complains there are no active drivers for this device. Its also nice for debugging boot problems like you experienced with the sleeper iso. Instructions to build one are here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16187&postcount=7) and here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21262&postcount=10). It is a serial port d-sub9 connector to a 1/8" stereo headphone jack. I got a pair of earbug headphones at walmart for 97 cents, but you can destroy any old pair of headphones. You then wire the appropriate pins on a serial plug (get at radioshack or use a serial cable) to the headphone wires and you have a serial cable. You can also buy one somewhere, buy I'm a DIY kinda guy. ;)
Your rc.sysinit.author script is already configured to get you a bash prompt with serial, so if you cant get your network up at first, at least you can access your drive with the serial cable. Get teraterm for windows (google it) and set the serial port settings to the defaults except change the baud rate to 115200 under the setup menu. If you use linux to connect, you probably have to run telnet for your serial port, not sure exactly how to do this, google it, settings are baud: 115200, data bit: 8, parity: none, stop: 1 bit, flow control: none.

7) You have now prepared the drive for its first hacked boot. Make sure to 'umount /dos' or whatever your files drive is, and 'umount /tivo', and then 'halt -f' to shutdown. ctrl-alt-del only works for me rarely in MFSLive, maybe its just me, just do something to properly shutdown and ensure all the changes are written to the drive.

If you changed any jumper settings on the tivo drive, make sure it is now set to master, or cable select. If you followed these instructions to the letter, you had it as master in your computer, so it wont need changing.

Hook it up, boot up, and cross your fingers. If you have your serial cable connected, you can monitor the boot process, which is nice to see what's going on and make sure all is well. You can also look for the vend/prod of your usb device if it is hooked up, and then add that line to your usb.map file to enable your adapter. If you're trying to use a wireless adapter, its the same idea, but I don't use them with tivos (transfers are too slow) so I can't help you there specifically. Use the search function, its your best friend.
[CONTINUED IN NEXT POST]

[zardano]

Ok, you're at a linux prompt, now what? You can't even type 'ls', and the drive is mounted read-only. First, type: mount -o remount,rw / to mount your filesystem read-write, then cd /tivotools and enter cpio -i -H tar < tivotools.tar This will extract the tarball and make your commands available.
Now, you want to disable encryption before you record anything. The easiest way is to just run the superpatch-67all, which will also enable MRV (multi-room viewing, lets your networked tivos see eachother's now playing lists) and HMO (home media option, lets you play mp3 and pictures on your tivo running TivoDesktop or JavaHMO on your PC). Note that for MRV to work on 6.2 you need to set your mrv name by running 'set_mrv_name_67.tcl MyTivoName' after running superpatch-67all. One thing superpatch does that I dislike, is it enables the 30 second skip feature, which makes the "skip to end of file/skip back to start of file" button (the -> button) not work, instead it just skips 30 seconds. I don't like that, so I delete the first line of the patch_6_2 array in the superpatch67-all script to get rid of it. Open the script in vi, type '/6.2' to search for 6.2, and then delete the first line like this: # 6.2 Requires set_mrv_name_67.tcl
# The first two patches are 30 second skip & backdoors

array set patch_6_2 {

0x00a67d58 "1040001d 1440001d"
0x00ae521c "00008821 24100001"Changes to: # 6.2 Requires set_mrv_name_67.tcl
# The first two patches are 30 second skip & backdoors

array set patch_6_2 {

0x00ae521c "00008821 24100001"

This script will modify your /tvbin/tivoapp file, and create a backup of it before it makes changes at /tvbin/tivoapp.original
If you want to revert, just 'mv /tvbin/tivoapp.original /tvbin/tivoapp', and type 'reboot'.

If you don't plan on using MRV or HMO, you can just patch the tivoapp to disable encryption by following the instructions here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31213). You are an S2 user with Software Version 6.2, so you would type this command: echo -ne "\x3C\x02\x00\x00" | dd conv=notrunc of=tivoapp bs=1 seek=10705308
Verify that encryption is now off by running 'ciphercheck' (its in the AlphaWolf's binaries so you can run it from anywhere). It should report: "TyStream encryption is currently disabled" at the top and then list your recordings and what their status is. Note that you only have to manually disable encryption if you opt to not use superpatch-67all, in other words, superpatch disables encryption for you.

Finally, to set up video extraction, your best bet is to use tytools. Thread is here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47025), file is linked here (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5428&d=1136877783). You need to get the tserver file onto your tivo drive, and then run TyTool from a windows PC. You can ftp into your tivo with any FTP software (no l/p, port 21) and put the file on there, just make sure all transfers are binary mode. Then, load TyTool on the PC, go to the "Options" menu, pull down to "Preferences" and select the last option in the list, "Server". I put my tserver in /hacks/tytools/tserver, so that's what I put in "Server Execute String." In "server shell prompt string," put "$" (no quotes, just a $). Click apply on those and close, enter your Tivo IP in the main screen, and pull down menu "server->start tserver." The server window should pop up and say: Telneting to the TIVO...
Connecting to '192.168.0.3'
Connected...
We got 'DSR708:/var/tmp$ ' which is the prompt!
DSR708:/var/tmp$ /hacks/tytools/tserver
Doing the Lowest PriorityFix...
Waiting for an incoming connection!
Click refresh. You should see your shows. Highlight one or more and click 'get'. This will get you some .ty files. To convert these to mpg, you need to go to menu "File->Process: Multiplex File(s)" and select the .ty files you want to convert. I find it easier to FIRST make key files (under file menu) and then Edit KeyFiles to edit out commercials or whatever, and THEN convert to mpeg. Works great and very easy, much better and more stable than Tivo's proprietary TivoToGo and TivoDesktop software, if you've ever used that you'll see what I mean.

Well...that just about does it. I'm still relatively new at this too, I just learned all of this the hard way over the past month here, so its all fresh in my mind. Hopefully this will help others having all of this consolidated in a single thread instead of trying to piece it all together from all over the forum, and help people avoid making newbie mistakes like trying to use the deprecated sleeper iso.

Good luck, and post back here to let me know how it goes.

[interex]

omg Zardano Thanks so so much.. I used "mfslive6b-with-62small.iso" and fixed my drive, i put it back into my TiVo and it booted up and went thru the entire setup process. So now to proceed to the next steps with hacking it. Its 2:15am and i'm tired so it will wait till tomorrow. again thanks so much for taking the time to type that all out for me

[and WhitePelican]!!!! <3

[interex]

zardano: does the guided setup need to go all the way thru, even past the initial "call" durring the setup? I dont have a phone other than Packet8 voip and for some reason when it tries to make a data call thru my DTA310 adapter it never completes.. Not sure why.. What step to complete this part??

[drez]

Yes, you can't skip the first call, unless you hack it. I suggest you hack it (if you can) and run fakecall.tcl to get past guided setup.

[interex]

drez: if i take it to my friends who has DTV service and a phone line and hook it up there even though i put the 6.2 minimal on the hdd (un hacked) will it hurt my 6.2 minimal setup in anyway? Will it be okay to just take it over there and let it dial out on his line? If so I'll go do that today and then hack it this evening.

[drez]

drez: if i take it to my friends who has DTV service and a phone line and hook it up there even though i put the 6.2 minimal on the hdd (un hacked) will it hurt my 6.2 minimal setup in anyway? Will it be okay to just take it over there and let it dial out on his line? If so I'll go do that today and then hack it this evening.

Yea thats fine.

[zardano]

drez: if i take it to my friends who has DTV service and a phone line and hook it up there even though i put the 6.2 minimal on the hdd (un hacked) will it hurt my 6.2 minimal setup in anyway? Will it be okay to just take it over there and let it dial out on his line? If so I'll go do that today and then hack it this evening.

Yeah like drez said, that's fine. You don't even need to go to someone that has DTV service or even connect the satellite cables, just hook it to a working phone line, and get it past this point. Then, be sure to make an image of it with MFSLive, because you don't want to bother with this again.
The initial call isn't part of guided setup, and isn't necessary to be completed before you hack the tivo. So theoretically you can get past guided setup, then hack the drive and boot up with tivotools.tar on the drive, extract it, and call 'fakecall.tcl' in your rc.sysinit.author, and then reboot a few times and it should get you past the initial call. This did not work for me, even though I rebooted 4-5 times and saw that fakecall was running in my bootlog each time, so I dunno. Some claim to have had success with this, but I didn't. Maybe put it in rc.sysinit rather than rc.sysinit.author so it runs sooner, that's just a guess.

[interex]

durring the backup i got this:


Source drive size is 1 hours
- Upgraded to 78 hours
Backup image will be 1 hours
Uncompressed backup size: 776 megabytes


Is that accurate? I have an 80gb drive in for now but the 1 hours thing kinda threw me off..

[Narf54321]

You used the 6.2minimal image and then expanded, yes? That sounds about right.

[interex]

Okay. Now when i get to the part about creating /tivo/tivotools i did that but when i tried to cp tivotools.tar over it said i was out of space.. what now?

[interex]

Okay. Now when i get to the part about creating /tivo/tivotools i did that but when i tried to cp tivotools.tar over it said i was out of space.. what now?

Okay n/m i got it.. So i got everything done and putting it back into the tivo (crosses fingers)... when my usb ethernet adapter gets here i'll be able to do the rest (ordered off ebay).

[zardano]

Is that accurate? I have an 80gb drive in for now but the 1 hours thing kinda threw me off..
Yeah, that's what its supposed to do. See, whenever you decide to backup from that image, you might decide to use a different drive, for instance maybe the 80gb drive you are using crashes and you want to use a 500GB drive now. By making the image 1 hours, you can use the -x command (in -xzpi) to expand that image to fit any size drive larger than 1GB. This way, if you decide you want to use a larger (or smaller) drive than your 80gb, you will be able to do it with this "1 hour" image and the -x "expand" command.

Okay n/m i got it.. So i got everything done and putting it back into the tivo (crosses fingers)... when my usb ethernet adapter gets here i'll be able to do the rest (ordered off ebay).

Congrats. What brand/model adapter did you get? You can't connect to the tivo with a usb to usb, there is no protocol to allow the computers to "talk" to eachother in this manner.

Your only option if you don't have a network adapter is to make the serial cable and use that to execute commands at a bash prompt. Using a serial cable, you can extract tivotools.tar to get your linux commands working, and run the superpatch-67all to disable encryption, so that shows you record while you wait for the network adapter will be unencrypted and ready to transfer when it arrives (if anything is going to be on tv in the interim that you'll want to archive). You can decrypt recordings after they have been recorded encrypted, but its a pain and requires doing a monte to the s2_unscramble kernel, so its best to turn off encryption ASAP. Remember to verify that it's off with 'ciphercheck'.

[interex]

Hmm, okay so i got my USB/Serial adapter and made a plug from serial to the headphone plug tonight.. I hook up to the TiVo and to my USB port and open Putty (on windows laptop) on Serial COM4 and i can see a lot of the kernel stuff scrolling.. but its full of garbage, a lot of it.. but i can see a lot of the stuff scrolling from the bootup. How do i get it to let me enter commands? with putty or Tera Term? How do i fix all the garbage scrolling with the rest of the stuff??

And i'm not sure what chipset is in the usb/ethernet adapter i bought.. just saw USB+Ethernet Adapter on ebay and grabbed it lol

[zardano]

Hmm, okay so i got my USB/Serial adapter and made a plug from serial to the headphone plug tonight.. I hook up to the TiVo and to my USB port and open Putty (on windows laptop) on Serial COM4 and i can see a lot of the kernel stuff scrolling.. but its full of garbage, a lot of it.. but i can see a lot of the stuff scrolling from the bootup. How do i get it to let me enter commands? with putty or Tera Term? How do i fix all the garbage scrolling with the rest of the stuff??
You shouldn't be getting any garbage, it should look like a normal linux boot process. Perhaps your cable wiring is buggy? I'm not familiar with Putty, but teraterm has worked well for me. Try using that. Make sure you have it configured correctly too, with 115200 baud rate, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, and no flow control.
As for getting the prompt, if you made your rc.sysinit.author correctly, and remembered to set it executable, you should see a "DSR708:/var/tmp$" prompt displayed towards the end of the boot process. If your cable is working, you can start typing commands now. It might still log more bootup output after the prompt shows up, but you can still enter commands and start working.


And i'm not sure what chipset is in the usb/ethernet adapter i bought.. just saw USB+Ethernet Adapter on ebay and grabbed it lol
You might have trouble getting it to work, there a only a limited number of chipsets that work with the tivo drivers. Maybe you'll get lucky, but I would have advised you to either get an FA120 (best but most expensive), or that $12 Airlink that I gave a link to earlier, as its known to be compatible.

[interex]

Scanning for phase4 repair scripts
Running boot Stage G_PostApplication scripts
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: hostname: command not found
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: setsid: command not found
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: se/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: tivoftpd: command no
t found
rc.sysinit is complete
ApgManager Transition from state BOOT to ACQUIRE_MARKER

ok.. it doesnt say anything about telnet and i dont get a bash prompt..

[zardano]

Scanning for phase4 repair scripts
Running boot Stage G_PostApplication scripts
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: hostname: command not found
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: setsid: command not found
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: se/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author: tivoftpd: command no
t found
rc.sysinit is complete
ApgManager Transition from state BOOT to ACQUIRE_MARKER

ok.. it doesnt say anything about telnet and i dont get a bash prompt..

Yeah, see having the boot output helps debugging boot problems tremendously. I see, I forgot that you need hostname and setsid on the drive to get bash with a serial cable, you'll have to pull the drive (doh!) and extract the tivotools.tar tarball (I do it in windows with winrar, but you can do it in linux too if you can boot into that, just can't do it in MFSLive), and then just copy hostname and setsid to /tivotools (it will be /tivo/tivotools when mounted in the comp). Make sure setsid is executable. Then you will get a bash prompt with the serial cable.
The error about tivoftpd will go away once you extract all of the files in tivotools.

EDIT: After hacking another unit, I've found that you can use the line "exec /bin/bash --login </dev/ttyDSS&>/dev/ttyDSS&" in place of the setsid command and it will load serial bash with no file modifications (meaning you don't need to put setsid in /tivotools since you're not using setsid anymore). I have edited the main guide to reflect this change. Also, hostname is unecessesary, if its not there it will just display (none): as the hostname.

[interex]

ooh, okay i'll go do that now.. i'll post update when finished.

[interex]

ok well i did all that then out of nowhere after the kernel booted in my terminal i was flooded by constant G^ G^^^ G^G^G^G^ G^^ G^... 100's of millions of them.. so i think i have a 'wiring' issue.

[zardano]

You are very close. The fact that its running rc.sysinit.author means that dd'ing the killhdinitrd'd kernel worked, because it didn't destroy your rc.sysinit.author file and reboot. So your drive is hacked, it just doesn't have the support files necessary to run the serial bash prompt. If you hooked an FA120 adapter to it, or any other adapter that's supported by the stock drivers, you'd be able to telnet in at this point.

[zardano]

ok well i did all that then out of nowhere after the kernel booted in my terminal i was flooded by constant G^ G^^^ G^G^G^G^ G^^ G^... 100's of millions of them.. so i think i have a 'wiring' issue.

Yeah is that the "garbage" you were talking about?
I soldered my cable, and it is still sometimes flakey at the 1/8" jack wiring connections. It has always received (dumped bootlog to screen) but sometimes it doesn't send (allow me to type) unless I jiggle the cord at that point. I guess that's the drawback to DIY...

[interex]

Yea, I guess i'll see what chipset it is when it gets here, it should be here today (friday)

[interex]

zardano...

I went out and bought a usb2ethernet adapter today instead of waiting on the one i bought on ebay. I logged into the box via telnet and then did as you said previously after getting the bash prompt.. i hooked it all back up and then it wanted me to go thru the "Call Process" again and then after it was done it took me back to the 'live tv' but i can not record anything, i hit record and nothing but a error chime. Did something break? Something else I should do to get this back?? Okay now i went to a program and hit the (record) button on a show just startin and it started to record but when i hit the 'thumbs down' it did the error sound again.. then it said to press select to stop so i did and it error again, hit select again and it stopped. Something seems wrong... Should i run the "patch" again on top of doing it earlier? The whole making a call thing kinda puzzled me after doing the patch. Sheesh a lot of work :(

[zardano]

i hooked it all back up and then it wanted me to go thru the "Call Process" again
Yeah it shouldn't have done that if you went through the initial call already. It does 2 calls, one to directv to get the local numbers list, and one to the local number of your choosing. Then, after its done, if you go to the now playing list, it will say "This is where your programs will be located once you record a show" or something like that. It has never asked me to do an initial call again after that point. Not sure what's up with that.
after it was done it took me back to the 'live tv' but i can not record anything
Did you activate DVR service with DirecTV when you activated your new card? Go to "Messages and Setup"--->"System Information" and make sure it says "Account in good standing" and "DVR Service: Active." Beyond that I'm not sure, try rebooting a few times see if that sorts it out.

Something seems wrong...
Um, yeah...I'll say.

Should i run the "patch" again on top of doing it earlier?
No, don't run it again. You can verify that it worked if there is a "Music and Photos" menu option in the main menu, or if you run 'ciphercheck' via telnet and it reports that tystream encryption is disabled.

Maybe something got screwed up along the line. You can always start over from scratch. I would re-image the drive with my 62small_after_guided_setup_and_init_call.mfs backup file (you made one right) and then just boot it pre-hacking. Ensure that when you go to "Now playing" list it doesn't want to call, but gives you the message about this is where your shows will be located. Try to record and stuff and make sure its ok. Then proceed with the hack, you just have to:
1) apply killhdinitrd to the virgin kernel
2) dd that kernel over your existing one
3) add upgradesoftware=false to your boot params with 'bootpage -P ... '
4) mount drive on /tivo and copy tivotools.tar, superpatch67-all, your rc.sysinit.author script, and the usb drivers if you are using them
5) Since you can login with telnet and arn't using the serial cable anymore, you can change your rc.sysinit.author script to just load bash without using setsid:
/bin/bash</dev/ttyS2&>/dev/ttyS2& Just replace the setsid /bin/bash ... line with the one above, and you don't have to worry about putting setsid in /tivotools. I would still edit it back to the setsid version via telnet once you are in and have extracted tivotools.tar though, so that you can get to bash with a serial cable in the future if your network ever goes out.
5) set up the usb drivers if needed
6) umount /tivo and do 'halt -f'

That should do it. Then you extract tivotools.tar on the running tivo via telnet with the cpio command, and then run superpatch67-all via telnet as well. Before you run the patch, make sure the tivo is working as it should (ie you can record, and use thumbs down, and don't get the bonk! sound) and then run the patch, reboot, and hopefully all will be well. Good luck..

[interex]

Well I guess my dad got it to record a show... so i cant re-do it till after he watches what he recorded. What bad comes from the "initial call" being made after the "hack/patch" has been put on? does that lock functions or break things? I got a 400gb drive i will probably put in it but i need to know how to put my saved image i made before onto my 400gb since i never learned that part. Then i'll go thru the entire hack process again since i know the steps i took did hack it. also i thank you for all the help ;)

[zardano]

What bad comes from the "initial call" being made after the "hack/patch" has been put on? does that lock functions or break things?
Well I know that if you let your dtivo call in after its been superpatched, it will download certificates for your MRV/HMO that will expire in 6 months. If you don't let it call in they will never expire.
However, AFAIK the initial call doesn't download anything, its just checking to make sure you have a phone line hooked up and can dial out. It is possible, though, that DTV may be getting some information from your system and could determine you are running hacks, you never know. I would play it safe and not let it call out, or I would try to use fakecall.tcl first and see if that takes care of it (put a call to fakecall.tcl in your rc.sysinit.author, and reboot 2 or more times. fakecall.tcl is included in the tivotools.tar binaries so its already there, just call it from the script and reboot. You can log the boot output with your serial cable and look for a call to fakecall to make sure its working). This is supposed to get you past the initial call, but like I said earlier it never worked for me. Maybe you'll have better luck.

However, just making the initial call might not solve your weird no-record, bonk errors so if that doesn't go away I'd just start over with a fresh image on the new drive. Use the one you made after you got past the init call, and boot it before you hack it to make sure it actually worked and isnt asking for a call again.

I got a 400gb drive i will probably put in it but i need to know how to put my saved image i made before onto my 400gb since i never learned that part. You can go to mfslive.org and read the "Full Guide" link, but basically you just mount your drive with the image on /dos, and then enter:restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi /dos/mybackup.bak /dev/hda (where /dev/hda is your new 400gb destination drive).

also i thank you for all the help ;)no problem

[interex]

zardano.. okay now the DTivo wants to automaticly record any given program at any time, sometimes at 11pm, sometimes at 1pm, sometimes at 8am.. just any random channel, any random show.. i gotta go tell it to stop recording. this is starting to be a little trippy.. i think i'll start with an all new image, do the inital call on the new image, then apply all the hacks, then etc..etc... hopefully this will solve this buggy trippy issue. I'll let you know later today what i come up with.

[Roger Dylan]

zardano.. okay now the DTivo wants to automaticly record any given program at any time, sometimes at 11pm, sometimes at 1pm, sometimes at 8am.. just any random channel, any random show.. i gotta go tell it to stop recording.Suggestions preference - maybe "record" still turned on (default)?

[interex]

i dont get it, still turned on? it just now came back on and is recording all by itself again. i'm not totally understanding this.

has there been any hack or fix to change the Channel Guide on 6.2 in my DSR708.. the font size on the Channel guide is so so small.. its very very small.. as if something happened and it shrank...

also.. it does a LOT of "Tivo Service Data" all the time, 4-5 times a day, and each one shows about 380 mb file size...

[interex]

Okay so i put tivowebplus on here and i go look at the toDo list and there are about 30 programs set to record but we sure the hell dont tell it to record these shows.. what gives? i cancel them all and a little later different shows are set to record... *confused*

[PlainBill]

Okay so i put tivowebplus on here and i go look at the toDo list and there are about 30 programs set to record but we sure the hell dont tell it to record these shows.. what gives? i cancel them all and a little later different shows are set to record... *confused*
This is one of the TiVo 'features' most people turn off. It analyzes your viewing habits and records similar programs. If you watch a few baseball games it will decide you are interested in games and record all game shows.:rolleyes:

Turn it off with 'DirecTV Central' > Messages & Setup > Settings > Suggestions.

PlainBill

[interex]

Thanks, didnt know/understand that part.

[knightshade]

zardano -

Many thanks for the tutorial that you put together here.
Straight forward, and let me get my SD-DVR40 up and running in no time :-)

Only question that I ran across was wanting to set a static IP.
Other than that - just need to look into what other tweaks I might want to apply.

Again - thank your for taking your time to type that up.

[PlainBill]

zardano -

Many thanks for the tutorial that you put together here.
Straight forward, and let me get my SD-DVR40 up and running in no time :-)

Only question that I ran across was wanting to set a static IP.
Other than that - just need to look into what other tweaks I might want to apply.

Again - thank your for taking your time to type that up.

This thread (http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=277681#post277681) has information on enabling the network settings menu. Make sure you have the same version of software.

PlainBill

[zardano]

zardano -

Many thanks for the tutorial that you put together here.
Straight forward, and let me get my SD-DVR40 up and running in no time :-)

Only question that I ran across was wanting to set a static IP.
Other than that - just need to look into what other tweaks I might want to apply.

Again - thank your for taking your time to type that up.

No problem, I'm glad it helped more than just interex. I hope it gets stickyed and added to the "Newbie Guide" index thread, but that's up to alldeadhomiez.
Long story short, you can set a static IP by adding these lines to your rc.sysinit.author: (assuming 192.168.0.2 is the IP you want to set static and 192.168.0.1 is your router's gateway, adjust IPs as necessary for your configuration)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.0.1 netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1
Note that if you set a static IP like this, MRV wont work because the IP wont get set early enough for the tivos to see eachother on the network. There are some ways around this, but I don't know them offhand, you'll have to search. I know that using DHCP works with MRV, and that's what I use.

[jt1134]

There are some ways around this, but I don't know them offhand...
You can use netconfig.tcl (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=222557#post222557) from the command line, or these (http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=277681#post277681) tivoapp patches can be used to enable network menus on 6.2x.

[knightshade]

Note that if you set a static IP like this, MRV wont work because the IP wont get set early enough for the tivos to see eachother on the network. There are some ways around this, but I don't know them offhand, you'll have to search. I know that using DHCP works with MRV, and that's what I use.

Thanks for the heads up.
That is exactly how I had set a static IP.

I only have one S2 Tivo at the moment, but had toyed with a 2nd to play with MRV. I would have been pulling my hair out.

[zardano]

Thanks for the heads up.

No problem. Here's another one: When you do add another S2 tivo and get MRV working, chances are you will have delays when entering the NowPlaying lists on each Tivo. It can take up to 30 seconds for your shows to show up, and its really annoying. This is a DNS issue, and results from the tivo wanting to resolve DNS addresses but is unable to do so since it is cut off from the DNS server. To resolve this:
I corrected my slow Now Playing List issue by:

1. editing the /etc/hosts file to include the static IP address and name of the other TiVo on my network, and

2. editing the /etc/nsswitch.conf and modified the "hosts: files dns" line to be just "hosts: files".

Then I rebooted and now my TiVo's do not rely on DNS, but they rely on the /etc/hosts file only to resolve the name-to-IP address of the other TiVo.


Credit for this solution goes to dnemec123. There are other ways suggested in the above thread but this way was the easiest and my preferred method.

EDIT: I havn't tested this, but I think actually only #2 is needed. I say this because I use DHCP, and recently my router re-assigned IP's, and I didn't change the values I had in /etc/hosts, and MRV still works both ways.

[at2marty]

zardano,

I don't post here very often, but do a lot of reading. Add me to the list of people that thank you for your well written instructions. I also would love to see this become a sticky.

A bit of my background... I have used linux for some time now, starting with Red Hat and trying several different distros. I didn't like the way some distros did things or included things that I did not want, so I taught myself how to compile and build a linux system from scratch.

When I decided to hack my first tivo, I used the ptvnet products which were pretty easy. However, much like the different linux distros, I did not like the way things were set up, so I decided to start fresh and do it my way. Thanks to you and many others that share their knowledge on this forum, I have successfully hacked my RCA DVR39.

[branlday]

zardano,

This is a fantastic thread. Your concise instructions allowed me to get my DSR hacked in 2 hours. With no prior Tivo hacking knowledge and a some linux experience, I smoothly got through all of your steps without any upsets. I used VMware Player to let me walk through the steps first and then did the work on my real hard drive.

The only deviation was when I setup my Linksys USB200M Ver. 2.1. I found your other post here (http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=288333&postcount=19) which helped but I think you made a typo with the product code which should be 13b1 and not 131b.

I used this to get mine working:
product 13b1 0018 Linksys USB200M ver. 2.1


Worked great the first time! I even went for the long shot and didn't build a serial cable.

[Forkol]

I'll be trying to do the same type of 'upgrade/hack' on my DSR-708 as well, but I have a few questions.

By way of my background, I'm an experienced software developer, with UNIX experience and I have done a couple of the drive upgrades on two DSR-708's, that were successful.

I'm going to follow the excellent guide that Zardano has, and I've read all that I can, but I may have missed a few things, so pardon me in advance if I ask a stupid question!

Anyway, my steps are that I plan to do are:

1) Upgrade the 708 with a larger hard drive following the steps from mfslive.org.

2) Do Steps #2 and #3 of Zardano's guide to load the kernel and killhdinitrd.

3) Do the boot to bash prompt, and then load superpatch-67.

My questions are this:

a) I was able to get the Airlink ASOHOUSB USB-Ethernet connector to connect the PC to the TIVO. But, I could not find by my reading if Jaime's Backport drivers support this. Could somebody verify this or provide a pointer?

b) My primary interest in this hack is to be able to record XM radio from my TIVO. I see the info on the patch for this. I assume I can just add the patch 'lines' to patch_6_2_array in the superpatch and do it all at once, correct? I know I may have to check to make sure the patch is compatible version-wise, but I'm assuming that's all I have to do.

c) I bought this DSR 708 used. I will call DirectTv to get it authorized, but in the meantime, I plan on powering it up and resetting it and running though guided setup, then starting my hacks. Is this the correct method, or would people recommend something else?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[jt1134]

I use an ASOHOUSB with 3 of my tivo's. You'll need to use jamie's backport drivers and add the vendor/product codes to /etc/hotplug/usb.map. The backport readme has the info you'll need to add. You can add the patch locations for XM recording to superpatch, just make sure you're using the right ones, since tivoapp is slightly different between versions 6.2 and 6.2a. You can hack before or after activating the box, it won't matter either way.