Megazone, I went to my account and found that there are two Tivo's listed there as still being viable and both said to have the Lifetime Service. So I guess that must mean that he will have it attached to the box like you said.
So WeakKnees would be the better option then. Thanks for the help, this is a great group. San If is does still have lifetime, and he doesn't need an HD box, it is probably worth getting fixed up. (Especially if this is one of the Humax DVD/TiVo boxes, but even if it is a non-DVD Humax.) One benefit of going through WeaKnees is that he could have them upgrade it at the same time. They can stick in up to 1TB, maybe more, for a little bit extra. TiVo, if they'll repair it, will only install the default capacity. And I think they're repair fee starts at $179. Log into your account on tivo.com and look at your DVR status. It should tell you what kind of subscription is on each unit in the account. Lifetime is tied to the box - it is lifetime of the box - and generally they do not allow you to transfer lifetime. *However*, they have run specials in the past where they allowed lifetime transfers for a limited time. In those cases they'd move lifetime to the new box, and the old box would get one year of service free. Then you'd have to start paying for a sub to keep using it - and they start billing monthly at the end of that year automatically. So the only way to know if you did that or not is to look at the sub type on the box on the site - or on the box itself on the System Info screen, but if the S2 is dead that's not currently an option. --
