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Re: [PLUG] directv DVR appliance investigations
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On Fri, December 22, 2006 10:31 pm, John Von Essen wrote:
> Thought this would amuse plug members.
>
>
> I have directv with their DVR service. The other day the receiver
> died, and would not startup. I know these units have a hard drive inside
> with an embedded OS, so my guess was the drive died or their was some
> corruption preventing it to boot.
>
> I also knew that the original tivo was a linux kernel, so I figured
> the directv unit might be similair. Goal was to mount it and do an fsck. So
> I ripped open my dvr unit and started playing around.
I had a DirecTV Tivo integrated unit. Only did minor hacking on it. That
unit died from a lightning strike that blew out the surge protector, TVs,
satellite receivers, etc. - and yes I had grounding rods up at the dish
and where the line comes in the house. Spent some money to get the
projection TV fixed, but no go on the PVR. No lbls, so I think it was
primarily the power supply that got fried. The TV tech said that's
basically what happened with the TV.
> Using a gentoo live cd I was able to examine the disk. Indeed it had
> some bad sectors. But it wasnt a ext linux volume, it was coming up as
> FAT32.
>
>
> So.... I connected the dvr's hard drive to a WinXP machine, and the
> dvr drive came up as D: with a volume label and everything. Did a full Disk
> Check, and voila - fixed. Installed drive back in DVR unit,
> and it loaded up. TV works!
I ended up switching to Dish Network after my equipment got fried. The HD
offerings from Dish aren't completely pathetic. Haven't done any hacking
on the Dish Replay PVR yet.
Right now I'm hacking on MythTV with a Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB 2 on a
notebook. PVR in my hotel room?! That would be awesome.
> Moral of the story. Directv DVR is not based on a linux kernel, as
> some might think. And if you have it, and it dies. Just through the drive
> in a PC and do a Disk Check from within MS and force a bad sector scan.
>
> -john
>
Cool. Thanks for the info.
Cheers,
jason nocks
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