Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

IDE hard drives

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Re: IDE hard drives

    I've just found myself in the market for a new IDE drive. My Tivo seems to have died and I need to replace the IDE drive within. I don't need a *huge* drive, like the 750 gig one mentioned earlier (already watch waaaay to much tv and that would be too tempting to fill!) and I think 160 sounds like more than plenty. Anybody know if Costco is still selling IDE drives? I know I can get them cheapest online, but I kinda like the security of Costco's return policy in case something goes wrong with the Tivo format.

    On that note, anybody ever replace a Tivo hard drive? Tips/tricks? I know this question should be in a Tivo thread, but while I'm here....

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: IDE hard drives

      I didn't look that hard but the drives at the Iwilei Costco were external drives, they didn't seem to display internal disk drives.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: IDE hard drives

        Hey, NoCAL Boy:
        Check out www.weaknees.com
        Plenty of info there on upgrading your TIVO, as well as drives available...

        jock

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: IDE hard drives

          Originally posted by mp3jockey View Post
          Hey, NoCAL Boy:
          Check out www.weaknees.com
          Plenty of info there on upgrading your TIVO, as well as drives available...

          jock
          Thanks Jock. Yeah, I already hit their site for directions on upgrading. Sounds straightforward enough to do myself that I can't justify buying one of their drives at twice the cost of the drive itself. Was looking for some real-world Tivo upgrade stories.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: IDE hard drives

            If you're looking locally, I think Personal Touch computers would be worth a call. They tend to have those smaller drives that others don't carry.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: IDE hard drives

              Took a long lunch yesterday and surveyed all the Big Box retailers in the area: Circuit City, Office Depot, Staples, Best Buy, Comp USA, and Costco. (Fortunately all within a five mile radius). Most carried only one brand of internal IDE drives, if any at all (external drives are a hot consumer item - huge selection now!). Size was generally 160 or 320 Gig.

              I bought what I thought was the winner at Staples, a 320 Gig Maxtor on sale for $80. More capacity than I need, but cheaper than the 160's so kinda couldn't pass it up at that price. Then I went back to the office and did a search online, to find that CC had a 160 Gig Seagate for $40 after rebate, available for in-store pick up.

              Now when I went by there earlier I know that drive wasn't on the shelf, and I was further intrigued with CC's "24 minute, $24 Gift Card" guarantee. If it's not waiting for you 24 minutes after you receive the confirmation email they'll give you a $24 gift card. Figured it was worth a shot, knowing the customer service is slow, and I'd get a cheap drive in any event.

              So I ordered, arrived 24 minutes later, and watched as first the stock guy, then a salesman, then a manager all ran around looking for it for 20 minutes. All came up with the same conclusion - it wasn't there. Before I could decide what to do with my gift card, the manager came up to me, offered me a WD 250 Gig drive for $50 instead. I figured, $10 more, bigger, and no rebate hassle. Sold!

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: IDE hard drives

                Check for real world upgrade tales at

                http://www.tivocommunity.com/

                The Seagate SV series 500 GB drive has been used with great success in TIVO upgrades. The drive is designed for AV applications running 24/7..

                jock
                Last edited by mp3jockey; August 2, 2007, 07:49 AM.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: IDE hard drives

                  I found out last week at work that for older computers that use the ATA/66 interface the most they can handle is around 137 Gbytes. So if you place a 160 Gbyte (or more, in my case it was a 300 Gbyte) disk drive to a motherboard that only handles the ATA/66 interface, the drive will work but you will see only 137 Gbytes (or less depending on the overhead used to store directory information).

                  To get around this problem I got an ATA/133 PCI controller board from CompUSA. While I was able to use the entire 300 Gbytes I don't know if I am able to boot off that drive. Never tried it since the system had another 120 Gbyte disk drive to run Windows from.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: IDE hard drives

                    Originally posted by helen View Post
                    I found out last week at work that for older computers that use the ATA/66 interface the most they can handle is around 137 Gbytes.
                    Many drives come with free software that can be loaded to help break size barriers. However, that makes the drive non-standard and can come back and haunt you when you try to move the drive to another machine.

                    However some might argue against spending money on a machine that old.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: IDE hard drives

                      decided to peek in on this thread, since Costco has, for the second holiday season in a row, offered some external Seagate hard drives-8TB, quite cheap ( if you still use spinning rust). Picked up two 8GB externals. Perfect for archiving my Blu Ray collection on, then backing up one drive to the other. All files were archived perfectly, and play as if they were using a Blu Ray player to play them back using VLC Media Player. If you're interested in the full instructions, I can reply with the link. This instructions of course only apply to media you fully own and wish to archive for your own use....blah...blah...blah....
                      Jock.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X