Once extracted to your TiVo drive mounted at /tivo, the init_framework.tgz will have placed the following files. Keep in mind that the actual path right now will be /tivo/, but once the drive is running in the tivo, this will be the absolute path. For example, when you’ve extracted it you will find the path for 001_bash.init is /tivo/init/001_bash.init. This is all just clarification. Be sure the following files are in place:
/test.conf
/init/001_bash.init
/init/010_lba48.init
/init/011_uma6fix.init
/init/kmonte.o
/init/monte
/init/vmlinux.px (renamed lba48_2.4.18.px)
/init/uma6fix.o
/init/uma6fix_license.txt

Notes:

The ‘test.conf’ file in your system’s root directory is what kicks off the ‘init_framework’ process, so if it is not found, nothing else that is present in your ‘/init’ folder will be found, and therefore run.

The init_framework montes (chainloads) into the custom lba48 kernel with uma6 support (required for RID units, not required for Non-RID) units. In order to support the monte process, a 3.1.1c killhdinitrd kernel is used.

If you remove the monte process by virtue of deleting the ‘test.conf’ file, you can no longer boot directly into 4.x using a 3.1.1c killhdinitrd kernel.

4.x+ RID/Non-RID Installation Guide

Last updated: 5.21.05 11:00 PM
David Dellanave – ddn – projects – david

The following is a guide that was largely (if not entirely) based on the steps presented by Riley. Special thanks goes to the creators of the hacks themselves as well as Riley, stevel, NutKase and inet22 who helped me put this together. I take no credit for coming up with any of this, all I did was write it down step by step – it is what I used to get my DSR704 up and running. I hope you find it helpful. – HUGE

This guide was originally written by HUGE. The additions and modifications to this guide I have made are by no means an effort to take credit for this guide. The original HUGE got me started, and worked perfectly for myself. I’ve made no effort to distinguish the changes and additions I made. If you have a problem with that email me. Thanks to ALL the people who have emailed me with input. I’d like to improve this guide, so any SPECIFIC suggestions are welcome. – ddn

I’ve added a new guide for updating to 4.0 from slices. This may not be for everyone. If you don’t mind wiping your TiVo, this guide is probably “safer”, but then again maybe slices is safer. Anyway, your choice.

Warning

As much as a step-by-step guide makes things both easier to understand and accomplish, you are still dipping into the realm of the unknown. For most people, TiVo hacking is a hobby as time consuming as any other hobby. Realize that what you are doing to your TiVo was probably not intended to be done. You may break it, you may lose your recordings (even if you’re not supposed to) and you may piss off your family. For an extra challenge, I recommend starting this process an hour before your teenage daughter wants to watch The O.C. This should only take about half an hour, leaving you with plenty of time. Or not. Keep in mind, other people love the TiVo as much as you do, and if you break it they will be pissed. The information presented here is a distillation of information, and all risks assumed are your own. – ddn

Assumptions

# This guide assumes you have a working knowledge of unix and linux. While I believe the steps here are fool-proof, it doesn’t always seem to be the case. This is not a tutorial, and I will not answer basic Unix questions. I did this in one day with tremendous previous Linux experience, and ZERO Tivo hacking experience. You will lose everything on your Tivo following this guide, bear in mind. If you’d rather not blow away your recordings and season passes, perhaps this guide will trip your trigger.

If you have no Linux/Unix experience, you will become frustrated if things don’t work exactly as they should. I suggest a beginner tutorial in Linux. It should get you started on the basic commands.

## The steps assume your (new) Tivo drive is hdc, and CD ROM is hdd. This means your drive is secondary master, and CD-ROM is secondary slave. I suggest this configuration, because it works. Why argue. Series 2 models: – When placing or removing your hard drives within your TiVo, be careful not to disturb the flat white ribbon cable running from the front panel to the TiVo motherboard. Powering up your TiVo with this white ribbon cable unseated may cause permanent harm to some models.

I searched the newsgroups and found that someone believes there is a issue with some motherboards and the decompression routine. So finally we went to a Pentium Dell machine and it worked fine.”

### You will need a USB Ethernet adapter to complete this and use all your new features. A serial cable is not necessary to complete this guide. However, if it doesn’t work a serial cable is mandatory for figuring out whats wrong. I can’t tell you how useful this is. Get yourself over to 9th tee and get a TiVo Null Modem Serial Cable. Or make yourself one. Go get yourself a USB200M or USB10TX or similar.

#### I applied these steps to my SD-DVR40. This guide applies to both RID and Non-RID TiVos. This means it will work on an HDVR2 and similar. The commands in red can be skipped if you have a Non-RID receiver. There are other parts of the guide that could be skipped, but no harm can be done by doing everything (except the commands in red). Following this guide on a Non-RID receiver also sets it up for LBA48 (disks over 137GB). If someone wants to enumerate the models this will work on, please feel free to email me. Most importantly, it works on the uma6 revision boards.

##### Activate the DirecTV card before you start hacking the unit. Maybe it will activate fine after hacking it, but why put yourself in a position to be up a creek without a paddle. Just activate it, then hack.

###### This guide uses LBA48 kernels etc. Technically you only need to do this if you plan to use disks larger than 137GB. However, I know of no reason that using LBA48 with smaller disks would cause a problem, so there is no reason not to. As usual, please email me if this is wrong.

1: Download the following files into a directory. Unzip zips, and unrar rars. Leave .tar’s intact.

2. Acquire PTVupgrade Enhanced LBA48 CD (the one w/ LBA48 and enhancements). I’m sure there is another way but this seems like the best. It was $5 well spent. Keep in mind, you pay for it and can download it immediately. Again, if someone wants to point out the “free” way of doing this, please go ahead and email me.

3. Acquire a “known good image”. There are two ways to go about this. I strongly, strongly encourage you to use PTVUpgrade.

4. Burn a standard ISO9660 CD with the files you downloaded above in the main directory. Put the 4.x Tivo image (Tivo_4.0.1b_unhacked_standalone.mfs) in a directory called /image/ of the main directory. I’ll call this the Tools CD, because I can. Please follow this tree structure exactly, so you don’t have problems later in the guide. Use a tool like MagicISO to pull the Tivo image out of the InstantCake ISO. It is the largest file in the image, and is named something like 000001. Feel free to rename this to match the file name I use (Tivo_4.0.1b_unhacked_standalone.mfs) or something else.

The file “tree” of your CD will look like this:


/init_framework.tgz
/bootpage
/tivotools.tar
/superpatch-4all-NutKase-0.7.1.tcl
/set_mrv_name_ADH.tcl
/guide_patch_v401b.tcl

/dssapp
/lba48_2.4.18.px
/image/Tivo_4.0.1b_unhacked_standalone.mfs


5. Boot your PC off the PTV CD with your new Tivo drive connected.

6. Pop the Tools CD in the drive and type:


# Make a directory to mount drives

mkdir /cdrom
mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdd /cdrom
# Restore image to the drive. Decrease the number 127 if it fails until it works, OR omit "-s 127" completely.
mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /cdrom/image/Tivo_4.0.1b_unhacked_standalone.mfs /dev/hdc


At this point you might run into an error about the disk not being large enough for the backup image. Most likely you’re wondering what its talking about because your disk is plenty large. This is because your disk happens to have a geometry that is smaller than the original disk, even if they’re both “40 Gigabyte” disks. The way I found around it on one disk was just to decrease swap to 50M (-s 50) but that isn’t the best solution. Apparently there is a better image out there, and it doesn’t have this problem no matter how small (>10G) the disk is.

After Completion:

cd /
umount -f -a -r

halt

Reboot is MANDATORY

7. Boot the PTV CD again. I have condensed these commands a LOT from the original guide. The comments remain mostly intact though. Execute the following commands:


# Make a couple directories to mount drives
mkdir /cdrom

cp /cdrom/s2_kernels/3.1.1c/vmlinux.px.gz /tivo/var/vmlinux.px.gz
cd /tivo/var
gunzip -d -v vmlinux.px.gz
umount /cdrom
# Put the killhdinitrd'd kernel in BOTH kernel partitions. one's not necessary but it saves having to check which with bootpage
dd if=/tivo/var/vmlinux.px of=/dev/hdc3 (should say 1+1 records in, 1+1 records out)
dd if=/tivo/var/vmlinux.px of=/dev/hdc6 (should say 1+1 records in, 1+1 records out)


- Swap to the Tools CD. You can skip the commands in red if you have a non-RID unit (HDVR2).


mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdd /cdrom
# Make a /hacks directory on the TiVo and copy the scripts you will need once you've rebooted with the drive IN the TiVo.
mkdir /tivo/hacks/
cp /cdrom/superpatch-4all-NutKase-0.7.1.tcl /tivo/hacks/
cp /cdrom/set_mrv_name_ADH.tcl /tivo/hacks/
cp /cdrom/guide_patch_v401b.tcl /tivo/hacks/
# Install the init framework complete with uma6fix
cd /tivo

tar -zxvf /cdrom/init_framework.tgz


An explanation of how things should look with init_framework. Note that if this doesn’t come out right, you will be staring at a screen that says “Welcome..Powering up”



# Update dssapp with the one from CD you burned (skip the next three lines for non-RID units)
mv /tivo/tvbin/dssapp /tivo/tvbin/dssapp.orig
cp /cdrom/dssapp /tivo/tvbin/dssapp
chmod +x /tivo/tvbin/dssapp




# Put the lba48 uma6 kernel where the init framework expects it
cp /cdrom/lba48_2.4.18.px /tivo/init/vmlinux.px
# Install busybox, tivoftpd etc
mkdir /tivo/tivo-bin
cd /tivo/tivo-bin
tar -xvf /cdrom/tivotools.tar


Make sure to get this right. This writes your bootpage so that the Tivo knows where to boot, and sets a few things like not to take software upgrades.


cd /cdrom/
./bootpage -p /dev/hdc # (The result of this command will be /dev/hda4 or /dev/hda7. I will use hda7)
./bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dsscon=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false" -C /dev/hdc
# Check it again, does everything look good?
./bootpage -p /dev/hdc


8. Create /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author