The HDVR2/DSR7000 Quick-Start How-To: From BASH to EXTRACTION

[cobelli]

I have written a quick-start guide to hacking the HDVR2 (or DSR7000). For more information keep reading. The guide itself can be found at http://generationtivo.

The WHY: There is a lot of information on out there about hacking the HDVR2 (and DSR7000), but it is scattered in many different places. I thought it best to collect all that information into one easy guide. After receiving so much help from the tivo community, I thought it time to give something back and my contribution is this guide.



The WHAT: Detailed below are all the steps required to get a virgin HDVR2 (DSR700) running with all the latest hacks. This includes:

A larger hardrive – U5 kernel with the 151 userland - Serial bash – Telnet – FTP – Tivoweb – Tserver and TyTools



What is not included? There are three main hacks I was unable to get working and they are therefore not included in this guide. These are the Lba48 kernel (Larger than 137gb hard drive support), daily calls out the ethernet adapter, and monte (an alternative to using the U5 kernel and 151 userland).



DISCLAIMER: None of the hacking in this guide was discovered by the author (Cobelli). The following is instead a compilation of other people’s work organized in an easy-to-follow manner. Credit is given to the appropriate individual when possible.


The guide was just to big to fit in posts, so you can find it here
http://hostfreedom.com/tivo

Have fun hacking!
- Cobelli

[Shr00m]

Nice site, I have been having some problems with the video on the background of my tivo after i mfsrestore the drive, i am following your guide to see if it fixes the problem.

[mrblack51]

Cobelli: i can see you put some work into the how-to, and its appreciated that new users do somehting like that. overall, it seems pretty good. there are a few issues though...the biggest is that you want two hard drives to restore with. really, you should just need one beyond the original tivo drive if you want to keep that one completely virgin. if you are using a drive to copy the kernel, then really you should just post the kernel somewhere and link to it, rather than suggesting so many drives are needed.

it would be a good idea to change the blue ips in your listings to different values. using the same ip implies that they should all be the same value, which is definitely not the case.

with so many steps in the same page makes it rather confusing. if the goal is a .txt file, then thats cool, but making it into a more linux-style how-to would be highly effective. ie: use a table of contents, seperate each section into its own page. use internal links to assist in moving around.

[cobelli]

Thanks for the compliment and yes it was alot of work (6 hours and counting)

Great idea on the kernel thing. Two 40+ hard drives is asking a little much. My one reservation is are there any legal issues surrounding me hosting the kernel?

Good point, the ip thing will be changed in the next revision (by the way, what is a broadcast ip?)

I originally intended it to be posted in forum, but it just ended up being too long. I like the one page format so that people can print the whole thing out and have it by their side while hacking the tivo. But, more web-navigation would help. Maybe I will make two versions.

The last thing is, I don't want to see my work dissapear into the mounds of info here. Is there any chance I could get a sticky?

Thanks,
- Cobelli

BTW -- I'd love some more feedback. I've checked my logs, I know you guys are visiting the guide, let me know what you think!

[Shr00m]

I followed your webpage exaclty as shown and took the 1st option ((A) Serial bash + Pegasus).

I put my drive back in my tivo, started up HyperTerminal, tested the end with a paper clip and got echo.

No bash prompt

I have no idea what I am doing wrong, being I followed the steps, step by step.


EDIT: What should my software version read on the Tivo when the drive is in?

[cobelli]

Hmm, not sure what's going wrong. First of all, the guide is still in beta, so there may very well still be a mistake in it. I checked it again, though, and I don't see anything wrong. My bet is the cable. I found a cable that I thought would work (it passed the test) but it didn't. If you have an ethernet device you are sure will work, go ahead and try setup C) Let me know if you need any more help
BTW, software version should still read 3.1.0-01-2-151

- Cobelli

[Shr00m]

Alright, my software version matches up with what you said.

I am using the cable that came with my Stand Alone Series 2, but I have a gender bender on it. I also have a null adapter, but I can't get echo with it connected to my computer with the gender bender.

Maybe I should order one from 9th tee?

I have a LinkSys USB100TX. It worked on my SA2 with some problems, but when my software upgraded to v4 it worked flawlessly.

I am playing on getting a LinkSys USB200M this week. Let me know if you think I should order another cable.

[SR712]

If I remember correctly, the tip and ring of the mini connector were reversed on the DTiVos as compared to the Standalones. The sleeve remained the same. I don't have a series2, but I would think they would be the same. Try swapping the tip and ring wires.

[Shr00m]

Originally posted by SR712
If I remember correctly, the tip and ring of the mini connector were reversed on the DTiVos as compared to the Standalones. The sleeve remained the same. I don't have a series2, but I would think they would be the same. Try swapping the tip and ring wires.

That sounds like it could be the problem, I will try it when I get home tonight and let you guys know.

Thanks.

[lol999]

cant i just take the chance and use the orig 40 giger that comes on the TiVo? So i would just need the tivo drive, and an 8 gig fat32 drive? Would that be enough?

[fixn278]

Originally posted by lol999
cant i just take the chance and use the orig 40 giger that comes on the TiVo? So i would just need the tivo drive, and an 8 gig fat32 drive? Would that be enough?

You could, but you would be breaking the first rule of working on a PC... always have a backup.

If you have problems and can't get the new image to work, what will you revert back to?

[DblDamage]

Originally posted by lol999
cant i just take the chance and use the orig 40 giger that comes on the TiVo? So i would just need the tivo drive, and an 8 gig fat32 drive? Would that be enough?

You can take the chance, but if the backup of your drive is no good, you won't know about it until after you try to restore it. And since you will be overwriting your original drive.....

Good luck,

DblDamage

[cobelli]

To be sure your serial cable is working, you could purchase one from 9th tee, or make one yourself. I made mine and it worked perfectly. The proper wireing is as follows:

1/8" Tip to DB9 Pin 2
1/8" Ring (Middle) to DB9 Pin 3
1/8" Sleeve to DB9 Pin 5


Also, from what I remember, the Linksys USB100TX works perfectly with thte pegasus.o driver. If you can't get serial bash working, try doing procedure B, going straight to ethernet.

Originally posted by Shr00m
Alright, my software version matches up with what you said.

I am using the cable that came with my Stand Alone Series 2, but I have a gender bender on it. I also have a null adapter, but I can't get echo with it connected to my computer with the gender bender.

Maybe I should order one from 9th tee?

I have a LinkSys USB100TX. It worked on my SA2 with some problems, but when my software upgraded to v4 it worked flawlessly.

I am playing on getting a LinkSys USB200M this week. Let me know if you think I should order another cable.

[cobelli]

Major update to the guide. Now only requires one additional hard drive and a u5 kernel image instead of two hard drives and the entire image.

- Cobelli

[Liam1965]

Cobello-

First off, thanks for an EXCELLENT resource. I've gotten tivoweb running in very short order, thanks to this. (Now if only I knew enough about networking to figure out how to access the TiVo through my firewall from the internet... Ah well, next time...)

However, when I tried to follow the instructions for TyTools, one of the zip files to which you point is bad.

tytool 7r7a (everything as of 7-10-2003).zip will not unzip. I've downloaded it on a Linux box and on a WinBlows box. I've used Mozilla, Netscape and IE. In each case, I get a file which, when I try to unzip it, says something about it not being a valid archive.

Any thoughts? I went to the TyTools discussion and downloaded 7r7a from there, but it doesn't include the TiVoSide directory that you say I need a file from.

Can you help?

=Liam