MarcFlood said:

I have a HR10-250 that has never been hacked. It contains a morning news show that has a segment with my son on it. I would like to extract only that one show so that I can convert it and archive it to DVD. I understand that I could go through the process of upgrading the unit then use the tools to extract the show. However, DirecTV has request the unit back so that they could give me the new model. Therefore I did not want to go through all the expense (network card, software, etc) just for this one show.

Question: Is their a way to remove the drive, put it in my PC to extract this one show and then restore the drive to it's original state?

Mark,

Since you don't want to hack the Tivo system, the safest way to extract this video is to use a stand alone dvd recorder. I use a Phillips DVDR 615 set top recorder for this purpose. In the one hour recording mode the reproduction is excellent. 

Note! You don't want to put the Tivo drive into your PC, Windows will change information in the boot sector of the Tivo drive. You won't be able to boot the Tivo without more work to correct this change. 

Hughes HR10-250 running 6.3a - unmodified
Hughes HDVR2 running 6.2 - Zipper loaded network up and running.
Samsung SIR S4040R running 6.2 - Zipper loaded network up and running.

MarcFlood said: Thank you rjcatlover. I made a dub by recording to a DVD via the analog ports but it experienced some degradation in the process. So I wanted to be able to keep the conversion in the digital domain. I might be mistaken but I thought I heard of those who have extracted shows by removing the drive and accessing it on a PC -- not by booting windows but by booting from a Linux CD with the right tools involved.

Mark,

I have read of this procedure too but can't find it at the moment. The digital file on your Tivo drive is encrypted. You will need to decrypt it. Next you will have to convert the file to a format that can be burned to a DVD. I have never done this, only read about it. I think the format(s) would be mpg2 or mpg4. 

Hughes HR10-250 running 6.3a - unmodified
Hughes HDVR2 running 6.2 - Zipper loaded network up and running.
Samsung SIR S4040R running 6.2 - Zipper loaded network up and running.