I have a tivo 649080 (series 2 dual tuner) which has started showing probable hard drive problems (intermittent pixellation). I'd like to extract the existing recordings to dvd before it gives up the ghost, and take the opportunity to replace it with a larger drive. From reading, it appears I can take the old hd to a pc and run a linux boot disk (mfstools?), which will offer the step of backing it all up (in a form I can extract from??) to some FAT drive. The same boot disk would then prep the new hd for placement into the Tivo.
So, questions: 1) Is that basically correct? 2) What program would I use to unprotect/extract the encoded programs now on the FAT drive? 3) Would the new hd include the hacks to allow me to network to it in the future so I can more easily extract future recordings? 4) Is there some unfortunate characteristic of the 649xxx which prevents such actions (as I've read it requires prom resoldering??)?
Thanks in advance for the info. I found it difficult to get clear info on the web for this relatively old machine. I'll plan on getting the new hd from you.