Installing an external drive bay in an Hughes HDVR2 DirecTiVO (TiVO)

This was a first run, kind of a give it a shot and see how it goes.  After popping the case open time and again trying different software configurations I decided the time spent on adding an easily removable drive bay was going to be worthwhile.  Two weeks, a hour here, 30 minutes there.  After a  lot of dremmeling I got something that works.  I decided to use the front panel of the Tivo as a brace to hold one side of the drive bay, the other side of the drive bay is held in place by a makeshift brace from piece of sheet metal.  It works but the brace is pretty ugly and I didn't even get a picture of it.  Next time I do one of these I will make a proper brace that holds the drive bay entirely and does not require so much modification to the bay.

Here's what it looks like when its done

Start by opening it up and removing the hard drive, if this mod sounds like a good idea to you, you are probably already all too familiar with removing and reconnecting the hard drive to try out some new software.

Unplug the ribbon cable going from the motherboard to the control buttons/ IR remote receiver (FYI rumor has it that if this is not connected when the system is powered on you will fry your receiver and never again be able to use your remote!  I did not test the rumor.)

Release the three plastic clips that hold the front on, release these and the front falls away.

I started by masking the area where I would be cutting with some masking tape to keep down the metal shards and contain them to some degree

The first order of business is to remove the piece of metal that would block us from installing the hot swap bay.  I used a dremmel with a cutting wheel and went to town.  A good old fashioned hack saw would do the same thing.

Now lets figure out the right fit for the bay...  Hmmm it kinda hits... some of the protruding metal touches the plastic of the bay before it can get tight to the front....  lets see what is easier to cut metal or plastic...

Well it almost fits but a little dremmel work is in order to make it a little thinner here and there.

Ugly but who cares no one will see it (I also had to dremmel out an area to allow the remote cable to pass through (lower left), not pictured)  Also remember those gray plastic clips from the face plate of the unit, those protrude ever further so make enough room.

Here the remote cable is going through its normal spot. (notice the identical sized hole to the right in this photo?)

They were kind enough to make one somewhat out of the way for us, so we will use that one instead, in this photo we see the ribbon routed with a couple 90 degree bends that will be hidden by the face plate.

Now just a matter of drilling a couple holes to line up with the drive bay install the included screws and its in solid.

Snap the face plate shut and it locks into place.  Hmm its gonna be kinda hard to get the face off again now that those two screws holding the drive bay are blocked by the faceplate, and the clips that hold the faceplate are obstructed by the drive bay... Well I can tell you from experience it can be done.  Hope you don't  have have as much fun as I did

On to the wiring, due to the new positioning of the IDE and power connector two new cables are required, I used one standard Molex splitter to get the extra distance for the power and had a little more trouble with the I was surprised to see an ATA100 cable but all 40 pins are present on the motherboard.  Normally one of the pins is removed in the middle of the connector as a key, all the ATA100 cables I had readily had this pin filled so I had to do some digging to find one that would work.

Well I wish I had taken some more photos but now its all together and being used so I am not all that likely to tear it down and disassemble.