DIY: Tivo hard drive repair/upgrade

Posted on December 16, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — 1 Comment

My Series 2 TiVo died last week unfortunately. I did some research on the TiVo forums and found out that most likely my hard drive had died since it was stuck on the ‘Welcome, starting up’ screen. Based on several threads I read, it looked like upgrading was pretty easy.

There were 2 options:

Head to DVRupgrade and buy a new drive that was ready to plug in, or
Buy a new drive on my own and purchase InstantCake and format the new drive with the TiVo image myself.

I opted for option 2 since it was the cheaper route. However, it was much more complex since you have to plug the new drive into a PC and reconfigure the boot settings in the BIOS. But definitely worth the $40-50 for me.

Tools needed: T10 and T15 Torx wrenches, a desktop PC with an available PATA cable and a CD-ROM drive

Step 1: Buy a new PATA hard drive online (it’s hard to find these in the stores these days since SATA is the new standard). Make sure you do some research depending on which model you have and buy a similar replacement drive.

Step 2: Purchase InstantCake. You can either have them ship you a CD, or you can download an ISO and burn it to CD yourself with programs like Nero Burning ROM. (If you have them ship you a CD, ignore the configuration part of the next step.)

Step 3: Crack open your PC and configure it so that you can load the InstantCake image onto your new drive. Boot up the PC with the CD in the CD-ROM drive so that it will “bake your cake”.

Step 4: Crack open your TiVo, remove the old drive and replace it with the new drive.

Step 5: Plug in your Tivo and watch it run! You will have to run through the Guided Setup again though which takes about 20-30 minutes.

Since all your account information is stored on the motherboard, you will have to connect to the TiVo service before you will see any of that info in the Settings screens, but after it connects you should be golden. I did have one issue where the system froze while scanning channels and found a thread that said you should repeat Guided Setup using ‘Cable only’. Once you complete that, you can re-run Guided Setup for the Antenna channels.

Tagged with: dead tivo, diy, do it yourself, DVRupgrade, instantcake, PATA hard drive, repair, seagate barracuda, series 2, tivo, upgrade
Posted in diy, general

DIY: GE dual water inlet valve kit replacement

Posted on November 25, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — 2 Comments

Here’s yet another DIY project to help save you some labor charges on failing home appliances.

Problem: refrigerator is leaking from the back of the unit

Fix: there is something wrong with either the water line or the valve. In my case, I could see water leaking from the blue cover on the valve kit itself. I removed the electrical plugs that were attached to the kit, pulled the quick release plugs on the tubes and unscrewed the copper water line into the valve. I played around with it for a bit, but realized the kit needed to be replaced. Tip: don’t forget to turn off the water supply before you start unplugging and unscrewing tubes.

Time required: removal – 10 minutes, replacement – 5 minutes

Thanks to Trent, he pointed me to Repair Clinic and found the exact part I needed.

dual water inlet valve kit

Tagged with: diy, do it yourself, dual water inlet, GE refrigerator, replacement, valve kit
Posted in diy, general

DIY: cabin air filter for your 4Runner

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — 2 Comments

I took my truck into the dealer this weekend for a 15k mile service. As usual, they tried to sell me on replacing my air filters – a charge of $70 at Folsom Lake Toyota. I proceeded to tell them to take a hike and went to pick up my truck. I happened to be out at Walmart with Kari and decided to pick up some air filters for the house and got a replacement filter for under the hood too (for $15). They didn’t have the cabin filter available, so I came home to Google where I could find that. I was amazed to see a generic cabin filter going for $30-40!

So I hopped on t4r.org and did a little research. Thanks to that trusty site, I was able to make my own cabin filter from a Filtrete home air filter at a fraction of the cost. The filtrete filters are $8, and I can make about 4 replacement cabin filters. Not bad compared to $40 at Napa Auto Parts.

: The stock cabin air filter

: The Filtrete filter (20x24x1)

: Relative size of the cabin filter

: The new homemade filter

Tagged with: 4runner, air filter, cabin filter, diy, do it yourself, homemade, ripoff, toyota
Posted in diy, general

What do Metallica and cartoons have in common?

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

One of my buddies at work recently entered a really funny radio station contest in the Portland area. In order to win Metallica concert tickets and backstage passes, people had to submit their favorite TV theme song tricked out Metallica style. His song selection was pretty funny and he actually won the contest! Check out the theme song he re-did (yes, he’s a real musician – not just a Guitar Hero musician like I am!)

Tagged with: karlton coffin, metallica, theme song contest
Posted in general

I’m a shotgun!

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

In the spirit of Halloween, I remembered a great story from college. Some buddies of mine were living in the on-campus dorms at the time and we were hanging out on Halloween night before a party. Some of the local residents brought their kids by the dorms to do some trick-or-treating. So we had a few kids come by early that night.

But one kid came by with a triangle piece of cardboard attached to his body. This was back around the time when the Bonfire tradition was going strong, so my buddy Aaron asks, “Are you Bonfire?”. At which the 5-6 year old responded with, “No, I’m a shotgun!” We all just busted out laughing – who dresses their kid up as a shotgun for Halloween?!! I know what you are thinking… yes, this was Texas. But that was the most creative costume I have ever seen.

Tagged with: halloween, shotgun, stories, texas a&m
Posted in general

Almost out of the woods

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

Tank is continuing to progress nicely. He had his staples taken out last week without any issues. In fact, they did it pretty quickly so we were in and out of the vet in about 20 minutes. He also went back to the neurologist yesterday for his 3 week post-op checkup and they were very happy with his progress. They couldn’t believe how different he was from the day he was in for the surgery. He’s now off all medication and is walking pretty well on his own. He actually even tried to chase a cat in the yard other day before breakfast, which was probably not a good idea. We can start easing him back into normal activities over the next two weeks and he should be pretty close to good at that point. He still wobbles a little bit on his back legs, so we’re hoping that his legs are just a little weak now and regain their strength. But it’s possible that he may permanently be wearing some beer goggles. We started with a short walk today down to the end of the block and back with his new harness and he really enjoyed it!

Tagged with: recovery, tank
Posted in general

Update on Tank – #5

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I posted an update on Tank, and it seemed like a good time to do so. He has been getting a little better every day now. He can stand up and lay down pretty easily now. He can walk, but we’re still trying to keep him from doing that too much. He no longer needs any help balancing while he’s outside, but he still sways a little bit back and forth. He gets his 15 staples taken out on Thursday, and will immediately get a bath 😉 So, it’s been a good road to recovery so far and hope he continues to progress quickly.

Tagged with: recovery, surgery, tank
Posted in general

Update on Tank – #4

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

Well, it’s Sunday and we finally got to go visit Tank. He is doing much better and is even able to put some weight on his back legs. His pain medication dosages have been decreasing. And it’s looking like he will be cleared to come home tomorrow. All good things!

However, we just didn’t realize what the result would look like. They had to shave a large rectangle of fur off of his back prior to the surgery. And it appears that it was definitely not arthroscopic, since he’s got about 12-15 staples along his spine. But at least it looks like the recovery is progressing nicely, so we are happy to see that.

Tagged with: herniated disc, recovery, surgery, tank
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Update on Tank – #3

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

Just a brief update from Friday morning – the doc just called and said Tank is doing okay. He snapped a little bit at them when they were handling him this morning, so they had to increase his pain medication. His reflexes are still relatively poor, but that is normal this soon after the surgery. We are going to let him rest a little more before we go see him so that he does not get stressed out (which is also common after surgery).

Tagged with: herniated disc, surgery, tank
Posted in general

Update on Tank – #2

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Mike Armstrong — Leave a comment

Just spoke to the neurologist and the surgery went well. They were able to remove a lot of disc material, so that is a really good sign. Tank will spend the night in ICU and the rest of the weekend in the clinic. We look forward to being able to visit him tomorrow night or Saturday afternoon.

Tagged with: herniated disc, surgery, tank
Posted in general

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