Upgrading your TiVo HD hard drive with a bigger HD

TL;DR:

For Tivo HD (652160) and Series 3.   Get the command via the interactive command generator at MFS.  Download the boot disk from 2009, from the release announcement (see the attachment).  

If you are putting in a 1-2TB HD the command should look like:
       backup -qTao  -  /dev/sd-original | restore -s 500  -xzpi  -   /dev/sd-upgrade

Run fdisk -l to determine your hard drives.  Replace /dev/sd-original with your original drive, which will be something like /dev/sda, and also for /dev/sd-upgrade.

The -s 500 indicates to use 500MB as swap, which is larger than the default 127.  (Failed: I though I could use "restore -r 8 ... " to indicate the block size in MB for recordings, but the value has to be between 1 and 4.   With HD recordings being 5+GB, I thought using -r 8 or even -r 16 would help free up memory and would cause minimal internal fragmentation.)

The maximum size you can upgrade to is 2TB as of 2013.  Choose a HD with low noise and low power consumption (heat); typically you want an "Eco" or "green" drive that has a slow RPM, say 5400 or even 4200.  This is what Tivo uses.  All HDs can record and play back streaming material at 10X the speed needed.  Try to avoid a 7200 RPM drive if possible.

For a longer explanation on the TiVo HD / Premiere: read Ross Walker's detailed blog or for the new Premiere TiVos see the community discussion with links to the newest software.

For newer Tivos, see the community posting and also this newer update about using the JMFS tools. -------------------------- 
 Ignore, since this is all said better and with pictures at Ross Walker's blog.
Details:

Tivo lets you upgrade from the factory-installed hard drive to your own hard drive.    Why do this?  It's much much cheaper.  And you get a much bigger hard drive, such as 2T.


There is a lot of old information on the web, that evolved as Tivo introduced various models.  But since the switch to digital, aka HD, TV, you need a "newer" TiVo that has a digital tuner.
We got a bunch of the HD (which are the same as the Series 3).  Since then, Tivo has come out with a "Premiere" line, which this blog post does not cover.

Here's what to do to upgrade your Tivo HD or Series 3:

0) Need: computer, large SATA drive, Torx-10 and Torx-15 screwdrivers, blank CD, CD burner.

1) Find a computer that can boot from CD, that you can plug 2 SATA drives into.  It's OK to put these drives into external USB enclosures and hook them up via USB.  I have only done this hooking the HDs to a M/B directly via the SATA connectors.

Download the tools from MFS.  This is a tech blog, get the linux distro and burn to a CD.

2) Get a Torx 10 and Torx 15 screwdriver.  Open your Tivo box, via the 6 torx-10 screws on the back.  Slide the top case toward you by 1/4 to 1/2" and pull the sides outward gently and wiggle the case off.

3) Remove the original HD from the TiVo.:  Remove the SATA / power cable from the HD.
The HD is fastened by via 4 Torx-10 screws. Pull the HD + metal holder out.  Remove the metal stand held to the HD by 4 Torx-15 screws.

4) Hook up the original drive and the new drive to your computer, and boot the computer with your MFS CD.

5) Finish this.

Keebox W150NR V2.0R routers are not the DLink DIR-300vB

TL;DR: this Keebox is not the same as a DLink DIR-300vB.  It is not DD-WRT compatible as of Feb 2013.

----------------------------------------------------
Fry's was selling Keebox W150NR routers for very little ($10 or $15) in late 2012.  I got two.

My knowledgable friend Google told me these were rebranded DLink DIR-300vB routers.  The important things to know about these routers are

1. The version matters, as version A is completely different hardware than version B.  The Keebox is a DIR-300vB.
2. There are some pretty bad security vulnerabilities with some (all?) of this model of DLink routers that will not be fixed.  
3. Some people managed to install DD-WRT on their Keebox routers by using the DIR-300vB instructions with minor modifications, but I cannot, since the routers I got behave differently than the others.  Sigh.

My Keebox router

My routers are labelled: HW: V2.0R FW:2.002 (note the 'R' in the version)


My Keebox behaves differently than the DIR-300vB and also differently from the other Keebox routers mentioned in this DD-WRT post.

1. On normal power up, it has IP 192.168.10.1 as others have mentioned.
2. When booting in the "Emergency Room Web Interface", the router comes up with IP 192.168.123.254 (not 192.168.10.1).  To access the upload page, you must let the router assign an IP address to your computer via DHCP.  Then you can visit http://192.168.123.254   
3. However, none of the DD-WRT images would upload correctly.  I tried uploading
   from every variant of browser on both Win and Mac.
4. The factory firmware does not have the security vulnerabilities of DLink-300vB , e.g. /command.php is not open.

It turns out this Keebox V2.0R is not the same as a DLink DIR-300vB.  I opened the router, by removing the two black pads on the bottom, and unscrewing the two screws underneath.  The SoC is a Ralink RT5350F (not a RT3050F) and  there is a chip missing relative to the reference photo.  After I figured this out, a better Google search corroborated my findings.

The Keebox summary: version 1 is good, but version 2 is not good.   Thus HW: V1.0R is a DLink DIR-300vB, but HW V2.0R is possibly a DIR-600v5 which does not support DD-WRT as of 2/2013.

Choosing home wireless security settings

TL;DR:  Choose WPA2-PSK with AES encyption for home use.  Choose an ASCII encryption key with a made up phrase, like "I live at 1234 Main in California".  Disable WPS if possible.

When setting up a new wifi router, you have to choose how to set up your wireless security settings.
WPA2 AES is good;  WPA is mediocre.  Everything else offers minimal security as software to break the encryption in a few days or even hours exist for WPS (which does a poor job of setting up WPA/WPA2) and WEP.

Home settings

For WPA and WPA2, the home variants are referred to as "PSK" or "Personal".
Here's a run down of the various choices without any of the techno babble.

Grade	Protocol	Variant	Encrypt	Thoughts
A	WPA 2	PSK/Personal	AES	The best choice.
B	WPA 2	PSK/Personal	TKIP	Not as good as AES
C+	WPA	PSK/Personal	AES	Better than WEP
C-	WPA	PSK/Personal	TKIP	Better than WEP
D+	WPS			Most routers are flawed. Disable if possible.
D-	WEP	64/128 bit		AVOID, WEP has been cracked.
F	None			Publically announce everything you do.

Enterprise or Corporate settings.

There are also wireless security choices where there is a centralized key server, namely for companies or enterprises. These go by the name "Enterprise" or "Radius" or "802.1x". Confusingly, note that plain "WPA2" and "WPA" typically refer to the enterprise variants.

N/A	WPA 2	""/Enterprise/Radius	Not for home use
N/A	WPA	""/Enterprise/Radius	Not for home use

Installing the Win 8 boot loader on a hard drive

Situation: I upgraded Win XP to Win 8 Pro and installed Win 8 to a new blank HD.  Win XP was on the "old" hard D: and Win 8 is now on C:.  The problem is that the Win 8 installer put the boot loader for Win 8 on the old drive D:, so I need to have both hard drives in the system.  I want to remove D: from the system, since I won't be using it anymore.  Thus, 

I needed to install the Win 8 boot loader on a target drive C:

As copied from Justin Coon's reply in this posting, the steps you need are

1. Boot into Win 8, with both hard drives.
2. Mark the target drive as active, in Disk Management, via
• Control Panels | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management  ... or ...
• On the Desktop | Win + X key | Disk Management
• right click on C: 
• Mark Partition as Active
3. Install the boot loader on C: via
   bcdboot windows-root-folder /s target-drive-to-boot-from,
   namely in my case 
   
   bcdboot c:\windows /s c:
4. And that should do it.  Shutdown Win 8.  Power off your machine.  Remove the old hard drive D:, and then power up.

Windows 8 Desktop sounds OK esp with Ninite

I've been wondering whether getting Win 8 Pro make sense, as I have some of the $15 upgrades MS was giving out to recent Win 7 buyers.   Historically the Pro version offers features the Home version does not, but having used XP Home for years, the Pro features are of fairly low priority.

Pros:
 - It boots faster and is more secure.
 - Built in AV in the form of MS Defender
 - The Hyper-V virtual machine built in allowing guest OSs to run.  This saves one from having to download the free and good VirtualBox

Cons:
 - MS removed the Start Menu on the desktop but there are 3rd party solutions.   See Solutions.

Solutions

1) I've recently learned of Ninite which installs all sorts of desirable free software (e.g. Chrome and/or Firefox, Free A/V, OpenOffice, Google Earth, Skype, etc) without any crapware or toolbars or any other junk.  

For Win 8, it also installs ClassicStart, a popular Start Menu replacement.

Why has it taken me so long to learn of this?