Please see:

http://www.wkforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1831

I'll give that a try, but I'm not sure that's going to help... This is a Tivo-Tivo, not a DirectTV tivo, and it is finding somebody's modem on the other end of the connection.

I already have the ,#319 code to use the external modem, I'm assuming I can simply append the new setup codes to that field.

No success

I tried both appending and prepending #096,,XXXXXXXXXX to the existing ,#319 that's already in the field, but now it won't use the external modem at all. When I try using the motherboard modem, it just takes the phone offhook instantly and can't dial out because the phone company's "please hang up" message takes over. It wasn't doing that earlier this evening...

The exact formats I tried are:

,#319,#096,,2585360
,#096,,2585360,#319

With both it attempts to use the motherboard modem, which apparently isn't working properly. With the ,#096 present the Tivo won't use the external modem.

I guess I'm screwed.

You can't put both prefixes in there. Try:

,#396

which tells it to use both the external, and slower.

Still No luck

I've just tried the ,#319. On the first test attempt it actually got past the dialing stage and into connecting, but it eventually failed with "service not responding". Two additional attempts failed in the dialing stage.

I guess I'll just have to send the unit back to Philips. Sigh. This exact modem setup worked 3 days ago, it's just now, during the intial setup, that it is refusing to connect with the Tivo service.

Can I return this new replacement drive? Philips will just toss it if I leave it in there.

Unless you have anything more to try?

You should swap the drive out before you send it. If you want to return it, email us with your order number.

Good luck with Philips. It's hard to know what's up over there these days. It might be time for a new unit.

Yes, it's time for a new unit

I've seen comments elsewhere in the forums that Philips is no longer repairing the oldest units because they don't have the replacement hard drives.

I bought myself a dvd recorder to use with this dead tivo, haven't even unboxed it. Now I'm looking at the Humax w/dvd but I've seen so many comments (elsewhere) about Humax units being unreliable that I'm hesitant to order one. I like the high-speed dump to dvd feature, though.

Any new unit is only going to be hooked to a DISH receiver so I really don't see the point of paying for a dual-tuner, especially since 80% of the time it's going to be running unattended while I'm out of town.

Sigh. I'm bummed. I'm heading back out Monday morning for another 6-week roadtrip so I don't have time to deal with this now.

Thanks for your help.

For what it's worth, if you're considering a Humax, you should get it soon because the $150 rebate goes away on 4/5 and the price will go up dramatically after that.

One more try...potential success!

I sent an email to 'info' asking about returning the drive, and a response I got back suggested trying

,#396,,#######

and my decrepit Philips has actually completed the call and is now importing.

I'll nurse this thing along and see how far it gets.

Yup. We've got a post about it here:

http://www.weaknees.com/phone

Well, not quite.. That's the ,#096 version. The one that finally worked is ,#396, and this is a tivo-tivo, not a DIRECTtv tivo, so does that apply?

,#396 is used if you have an external modem
,#096 is used if you are using an internal modem

Otherwise, tivo with or without DIRECTV, the instructions apply

So, to summarize

Ok, here's the situation as I currently understand it.

The WK external modem instruction sheet says to use simply:

,#316

to disable the internal modem and use the external modem instead.

But the 800 number the 3.0 OS is using is no longer valid, so Guided Setup fails, for all ancient TiVo and DirectTV TiVo units. It only worked for me because when I installed the external modem, my TiVo was already using my local TiVo service number, and switching to an external modem doesn't require repeating Guided Setup.

To get through Guided Setup on a Series 1 with OS 3.x and external modem, override the phone number and use the external modem:

,#396,,#######

where ####### is a local TiVo service phone number.

To override the phone number for the internal modem use:

,#096,,#######

So, theoretically, now that I'm through Guided Setup, I could go back to ",#316" and it would work because the unit now knows to call my local TiVo service number instead of the out-of-service 800 number.

It would be very helpful if the instruction sheet WK packs with the external modem explained the situation and included the ,#396,,####### variant.

There are so many places where information applies to DirectTV TiVos but not Philips/etc TiVos that when I read the web page about the phone number, I thought it applied only to DirectTV TiVos. I read that to mean that DirectTV had changed their own service phone number, not TiVo itself. So, for me, that page wasn't clear.

This is going to be a problem for anyone using a Series 1 with an 3.x OS trying to go back through Guided Setup, right? So won't everyone have to apply the ,#396 or ,#096 fixes when installing a replacement hard drive in an old Series 1? Perhaps this needs to go into that instruction sheet, too...?

Ye gads, what a weekend...! I had given up on my unit and as about to toss it into the trash!

The real issue isn't anyone installing a replacement drive, it's what number is on the replacement drive.

It's pretty surprising that DTV let a number go like that. You'd think they'd hang on to a dial-in number endlessly just to keep everyone in this situation from calling them for support.