I had a stand alone series 2 60 hour tivo and cancelled the service a while ago when they wouldn't give me the $6.95 price that lots of other dvdtalkers were getting. It worked for a while on manual record, but when we moved, I boxed it up and stored it for several months.

I tried put it in my son's room today, and it won't record anything--not even just hitting the record button while watching live tv works. Is there a way to get around this? A hack or something? Or do I now have a very expensive paperweight?

When I got a Series 2 TiVo I was able to transfer my lifetime service from my older TiVo. I no longer had service for the old one but I've used it ever since as a manual recorder. I did find that the clock started to be off so I hooked up the modem to make calls again and the clock was corrected. I still keep the modem connected. Apparently the Tivo keeps calling and still gets certain information although I get no programming info and it's always telling me that my "TiVo sevice has been suspended!"

My understanding was that the old TiVos could always work manually without buying the service but the Series 2 sets wouldn't record manually without the service. But since you were able to use it manually after cancelling the service maybe I'm wrong. You could try connecting the modem again to make calls and maybe you'll get enough info from TiVo to manually record again. And maybe not.

The people at Tivo say that you can't do this, how'd you manage that?

It was a special offer more than two years ago. Buy a Series 2 TiVo direct from TiVo and you could transfer your service. I even posted the deal here on DVD Talk and I got a grand total of zero responses.

Here's the thread:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...highlight=TiVo

The TiVo link I posted still works so you can see what was involved in the offer (although it does say, of course, that the offer has ended).

Also, at the time the then new Series 2 sets were not being discounted much at all. Now you can get them for a lot less.

Edited to add:

I just checked my "phone connection" information on my old machine and it said it last called at 9:55am on Friday April 29. It says the next scheduled call is May 5 at 12:58pm. So it's not calling nearly every day like the Tivo I have with service. What it seems like is that it still provides the old set with this minimal service of keeping the clock accurate and maybe some other things. Of course as I said I do not get any programming data on the old set. Also, I haven't got any of the software upgrades or updates on channel changes from my cable company so it's still running the software from more than two years ago.

Interesting, thanks for the info. Maybe another offer like this will come around again someday for a future box.

Some of the series 2's have a basic service that is free. I think it is only the combo dvd units though. I know my Toshiba does. Not only can you record manually, you actually get the Tivo info for 3 days time vs. the 14 day subscription time, if that makes sense.

Mine doesn't do that.

I really don't want to subscribe since I already have directivo. I was hoping there was some way to disable the clock or something so that it could at least be as good as a vcr.