# Everything was fine last night



## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Running 2 Bolts with external WD Reds 4 and 6 tb. Went to watch TV and nothing. They are remote so I said how can both not be working. Went down and both had the flashing 4 lights. Unplugged and tried all kinds of reboots meaning the hard drive first, after and the same time. Nothing would change the result of 4 lights flashing. I remember when I first did the HD upgrade it took a couple times to work. But power has been off and on many times and relocated equipment without problems. I thought it has to be a update problem for sure but don't see anything on the forum. HELP!!!!


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Just to clarify, the 4 TB and 6 TB drives are added to each bolt as external drives so each bolt have both an internal original drive and an external Red drive? Or are you meaning you externalized the internal drives to the 4 TB and 6 TB red drives?


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

jmbach said:


> Just to clarify, the 4 TB and 6 TB drives are added to each bolt as external drives so each bolt have both an internal original drive and an external Red drive? Or are you meaning you externalized the internal drives to the 4 TB and 6 TB red drives?


The internal drives are disconnected. I did the whole ggieseke procedure. Has been working perfectly for 10 months. They are actually 6 and 8 TB, its been a bit. It was strange they both did this that's why I thought software update.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Were you on the priority signup list for 20.7.2? I put my new Roamio Pro on it yesterday and nothing so far, but it looks like some people who never signed up are getting it.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

ggieseke said:


> Were you on the priority signup list for 20.7.2? I put my new Roamio Pro on it yesterday and nothing so far, but it looks like some people who never signed up are getting it.


I didn't know anything about the list. Is it possible I'm the only one with a problem with this update. Hard to believe but total makes sense since both went down some where after 11:00 pm. What the heck do I do now?


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

JCN said:


> *Running 2 Bolts with external WD Reds 4 and 6 tb*. Went to watch TV and nothing. They are remote so I said how can both not be working. Went down and *both had the flashing 4 lights*... ...HELP!!!!


AFAICT, you're about the third Bolt owner with a larger than 3TB HDD reporting 'Flashing Lights' today.

See:
*20.7.2 has arrived!*​for the others.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

JCN said:


> *The internal drives are disconnected. I did the whole ggieseke procedure*...


What's the "*whole @ggieseke procedure*"? LINK please.

I never knew that you could run an external HDD WITHOUT an internal HDD. Sounds like an interesting read.


JCN said:


> ...Has been working perfectly for 10 months. They are actually 6 and 8 TB, its been a bit. It was strange they both did this *that's why I thought software update*.


I guess you're now on 20.7.2, whether you can check it or not...


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

JCN said:


> I didn't know anything about the list. Is it possible I'm the only one with a problem with this update. Hard to believe but total makes sense since both went down some where after 11:00 pm. What the heck do I do now?


At least one of the other people mentioned putting in the original 500GB HD and it upgraded to latest OS and continued working.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

sfhub said:


> At least one of the other people mentioned putting in the original 500GB HD and it upgraded to latest OS and continued working.


Yes I was afraid of that. I will probably have to do that. The original hard drive is still installed with the sata cable removed. Did he stay with the 500 after the update or was it able to move to the other drive?


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

ClearToLand said:


> What's the "*whole @ggieseke procedure*"? LINK please.
> 
> I never knew that you could run an external HDD WITHOUT an internal HDD. Sounds like an interesting read.
> I guess you're now on 20.7.2, whether you can check it or not...


MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

ClearToLand said:


> AFAICT, you're about the third Bolt owner with a larger than 3TB HDD reporting 'Flashing Lights' today.
> 
> See:
> *20.7.2 has arrived!*​for the others.


My external 6TB didn't take the update and I wound up staring at the 4 flashing lights on my Bolt. As a last resort I reinstalled the original 500GB and after an hour it took the upgrade. Unfortunately I received an error message that since the TiVo had not connected to the TiVo service for more than 30 days, I need to contact "customer service" to restore the service. Sure enough, my Cable stations all came back with the exception of the premiums, Plex, and Netflix but NO guide information so I have no record capability. The loss of HBO is not a surprise since this happens every time I swapped hard drives. This can be corrected with call to Comcast. The call to TiVo may be a little more interesting.

Primaryforce


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

My 3TB Roamio Pro with an mfsr reformatted drive got the 20.7.2 update last night without any problems.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

ggieseke said:


> My 3TB Roamio Pro with an mfsr reformatted drive got the 20.7.2 update last night without any problems.


?  The Roamio Pro comes with a 3TB drive. I'm curious. Why did you use mfsr to reformat it?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

justen_m said:


> ?  The Roamio Pro comes with a 3TB drive. I'm curious. Why did you use mfsr to reformat it?


To 4k align the inodes. I did that to my 3 TB Bolt +.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

primaryforce said:


> Unfortunately I received an error message that since the TiVo had not connected to the TiVo service for more than 30 days, I need to contact "customer service" to restore the service.


What happens when you force another connection to TiVo? Normally that would give you another 30+ days.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> My external 6TB didn't take the update and I wound up staring at the 4 flashing lights on my Bolt. As a last resort I reinstalled the original 500GB and after an hour it took the upgrade. Unfortunately I received an error message that since the TiVo had not connected to the TiVo service for more than 30 days, I need to contact "customer service" to restore the service. Sure enough, my Cable stations all came back with the exception of the premiums, Plex, and Netflix but NO guide information so I have no record capability. The loss of HBO is not a surprise since this happens every time I swapped hard drives. This can be corrected with call to Comcast. The call to TiVo may be a little more interesting.
> 
> Primaryforce


Now the question of how to reintroduce my 6 & 8 tb drives. With a little luck maybe jmbach or ggieseke and all the other people that helped will come up with a answer. I know that's the only shot I got.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

sfhub said:


> What happens when you force another connection to TiVo? Normally that would give you another 30+ days.


I think the error represents the fact that I have not connected with the original 500GB hard drive for more than 30 days. Actually it has been over a year since I implemented the mod with the 6TB. I guess they can detect if you make the mod but probably don't make a big fuss since that would cut into their revenue stream.

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

JCN said:


> Now the question of how to reintroduce my 6 & 8 tb drives. With a little luck maybe jmbach or ggieseke and all the other people that helped will come up with a answer. I know that's the only shot I got.


Have you tried unplugging everything and hooking them back up (cold boot)?


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

justen_m said:


> ?  The Roamio Pro comes with a 3TB drive. I'm curious. Why did you use mfsr to reformat it?


As jmbach said, mostly to align the application and inode zodes. I also wanted a box that was identical to my other Pro with a factory-layout 3TB in every regard except for the mfsr reformat. Now I can compare apples to apples to see which one is faster. Same provider, channel list, guide data, one passes, etc.

The fact that it took 20.7.2 makes me fairly sure that 3-4TB Roamios don't have any issues with it. I don't have any Bolts to test with, or any Roamios over 4TB, so there could still be something that they changed that breaks it. If anyone out there with an mfsr reformatted drive has received 20.7.2 please let me know. The more data I have the faster I will be able to troubleshoot.

Edit: Apparently all three of my Roamios updated last night even through the other two weren't on the priority list. One of them is a basic that already had a 4TB mfsr drive, so that configuration passed.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

ggieseke said:


> Have you tried unplugging everything and hooking them back up (cold boot)?


Right now I plugged in the 500 gig that's still mounted in the Bolt. It says preparing the update and has been 2 hrs so far. I was just about to ask primaryforce how long his took when I saw your question. Earlier I was saying to my son I wonder after this update if I plug in the WD hard drive would I get lucky and it worked. My thought was that even without the hard drive the bolt has some software that might change after the update. As soon as I can I wiil try it and inform you of the results. primaryforce was saying he had to contact Tivo to get everything working. I'm thinking of plugging in the other HD first and see what happens, depending where it leaves me after the update.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

primaryforce said:


> I think the error represents the fact that I have not connected with the original 500GB hard drive for more than 30 days. Actually it has been over a year since I implemented the mod with the 6TB. I guess they can detect if you make the mod but probably don't make a big fuss since that would cut into their revenue stream.


On my TiVo's if I disconnect from the network for more than 30 days, I get a similar message, however after I connect to mothership it goes away. I put a 10yr old drive in an S3 and it gave a similar message. I've never had to call support though, so I'm wondering if this is new policy or just the message they give you which might not reflect what you actually need to do to get the unit back online.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

sfhub said:


> On my TiVo's if I disconnect from the network for more than 30 days, I get a similar message, however after I connect to mothership it goes away. I put a 10yr old drive in an S3 and it gave a similar message. I've never had to call support though, so I'm wondering if this is new policy or just the message they give you which might not reflect what you actually need to do to get the unit back online.


Good to know. I will definitely try without calling and keep everybody informed.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

As long as they didn't make any big changes to the platter drive structure between 20.7.1 and 20.7.2, hopefully it will just boot back up to normal once the upgrade completes.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

That would be sweet. Just checked and still doing the update nothing changed on the screen. Been about 3hr. wonder if i should unplug and try again.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> Good to know. I will definitely try without calling and keep everybody informed.


While I spent about an hour on the phone with TiVo customer service, they didn't do anything different than I couldn't have done myself. They got my guide information back but not Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Plex. I actually wound up going through the complete setup to get the "apps" running and remove the V312 message. Now my Bolt is back to the original 500GB configuration and when I get the new eSata cable tomorrow, I will give another run at connecting the 6TB WD Red. One tip from customer service was to connect twice to the TiVo service after making changes.

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> While I spent about an hour on the phone with TiVo customer service, they didn't do anything different than I couldn't have done myself. They got my guide information back but not Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Plex. I actually wound up going through the complete setup to get the "apps" running and remove the V312 message. Now my Bolt is back to the original 500GB configuration and when I get the new eSata cable tomorrow, I will give another run at connecting the 6TB WD Red. One tip from customer service was to connect twice to the TiVo service after making changes.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


How long did your update take?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

The update to the 20.7.2 firmware took over an hour. Updating the settings to get my channel guide and apps took about 45 minutes.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> The update to the 20.7.2 firmware took over an hour. Updating the settings to get my channel guide and apps took about 45 minutes.


Thank you. I'm going to pull the power and start over.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Okay, got both 500 gig internal hard drives with the new update. Did not have to contact TiVo service but looks like I have to play with my cable cards. On one of my bolts I disconnected the internal drive and connected my external drive. Tried many different ways of rebooting with no success.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> Okay, got both 500 gig internal hard drives with the new update. Did not have to contact TiVo service but looks like I have to play with my cable cards. On one of my bolts I disconnected the internal drive and connected my external drive. Tried many different ways of rebooting with no success.


It sounds like you have may have a hardware issue since most of the others that took the firmware update did not have an issue. I will know more tomorrow when I receive my new eSata cable. I will first try connecting my 6TB WD Red and see if it will connect without the 4 flashing lights. If that does not work, I will reformat my 6TB drive with the MFS reformatting utility. I hate to lose my previously recorded content but it is better than being restricted to the 500GB drive for the upcoming fall season. As an absolute last resort, I will try to convince my wife that we need a Bolt Plus. 

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> It sounds like you have may have a hardware issue since most of the others that took the firmware update did not have an issue. I will know more tomorrow when I receive my new eSata cable. I will first try connecting my 6TB WD Red and see if it will connect without the 4 flashing lights. If that does not work, I will reformat my 6TB drive with the MFS reformatting utility. I hate to lose my previously recorded content but it is better than being restricted to the 500GB drive for the upcoming fall season. As an absolute last resort, I will try to convince my wife that we need a Bolt Plus.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


Just got done with the cable card company everything's working fine except for the itty bitty tiny hard drive I am flipping out not used to that. Boy did those big Drives spoil me. The cable could make sense I'm just never that lucky. I have 2 bolts doing the same thing the only Hardware thing could be the cable if the software affected that. Good luck let me know how you make out. I'll be anxiously waiting for good news.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> Just got done with the cable card company everything's working fine except for the itty bitty tiny hard drive I am flipping out not used to that. Boy did those big Drives spoil me. The cable could make sense I'm just never that lucky. I have 2 bolts doing the same thing the only Hardware thing could be the cable if the software affected that. Good luck let me know how you make out. I'll be anxiously waiting for good news.


I am sure you have been through this before but every time you swap hard drives you need to contact the cable company to "pair" the TiVo to the cable card at least for any premium channels and VOD.

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

Well I received my new eSATA cable this morning and tried reinstalling my 6TB WD Red but was again greeted with the 4 flashing lights. I decided to start fresh so I reformatted my 6TB on my PC and reinstalled in my Bolt. No luck since again this resulted in the 4 flashing lights. The MFS reformatting tool won't do any good since the TiVo didn't initialize the 6TB. I am running out of ideas to get this mod working. I may try again with a extra 1TB Seagate I have. Anyway I am back watching my TiVo with the little original 500GB drive debating if I should call Comcast to get my cable card activated for HBO and VOD.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Use the manufacturer diagnostic on the drive and do a complete write followed by a complete read test. Then put it in your Bolt to see if it will format it. 

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Yikes that's bad news all around. I'll have to wait and see what the developers say. I'll for now just hang in there hopefully there's a fix. Strange that some have the problem and some don't with so many using the same software. I agree that little Drive is hard to deal with and all my recordings off the other hard drives not accessible.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

jmbach said:


> Use the manufacturer diagnostic on the drive and do a complete write followed by a complete read test. Then put it in your Bolt to see if it will format it.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


Yikes! Only 9 hours and 15 minutes to go just to write!


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> Yikes that's bad news all around. I'll have to wait and see what the developers say. I'll for now just hang in there hopefully there's a fix. Strange that some have the problem and some don't with so many using the same software. I agree that little Drive is hard to deal with and all my recordings off the other hard drives not accessible.


Well maybe by the time I finish flushing my 6TB drive we will have a response.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> Well maybe by the time I finish flushing my 6TB drive we will have a response.


Don't include me in those comments. A ton of work put in to that programing. I could only imagine. Also people might not be around their computer montoring the back-and-forth communication for a period of time. I think the people involved in the development of this have a lot of pride and if there's a way to resolve it it will happen. It's impossible to create something and not be vulnerable to a future updates that you don't control. Totally understand your frustration. It was really good what we had but it's not over yet.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

JCN said:


> Don't include me in those comments. A ton of work put in to that programing. I could only imagine. Also people might not be around their computer montoring the back-and-forth communication for a period of time. I think the people involved in the development of this have a lot of pride and if there's a way to resolve it it will happen. It's impossible to create something and not be vulnerable to a future updates that you don't control. Totally understand your frustration. It was really good what we had but it's not over yet.


Thanks for that! I just found at least one person with a 4TB Bolt that took the 20.7.2 upgrade without any problems.

"I have a white Bolt with the Seagate 4 TB drive. It updated to 20.7.2 with no issues. Is it possible your 4 TB drive failed? I am on my 2nd one. If this one fails too, I'm buying the 3 TB WD model that comes in the Bolt+. WeakKnees has it for sale now."

That said, it's still possible that they changed something and if I can figure out what what happened I'll fix it if I can. I don't have (or want) a Bolt, so I'm working blind here. At the very least it would require someone to image their entire drive and post it, or figure out how to hook it up to a PC and let me access it remotely.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

I would absolutely be glad to help you any way I could. I am not as tech-savvy as you I do know a little. If there's somebody else that's a little more knowledgeable that has my situation or our situation that would be good for them to get you the information you need if not I will be absolutely glad to work with you and see if this can be resolved. Thanks for your time. I'm sure I can do it if need be, you just would have to give me step by step. Thanks.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

ggieseke said:


> Thanks for that! I just found at least one person with a 4TB Bolt that took the 20.7.2 upgrade without any problems.
> 
> "I have a white Bolt with the Seagate 4 TB drive. It updated to 20.7.2 with no issues. Is it possible your 4 TB drive failed? I am on my 2nd one. If this one fails too, I'm buying the 3 TB WD model that comes in the Bolt+. WeakKnees has it for sale now."


Was that a 4TB 3.5" drive in external enclosure or was it a 4TB 2.5" internal drive. It seemed the two I saw posting here that had immediate issues after the upgrade were using drives in external enclosures, which I assume means 3.5" drives.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I assumed that it was one of the few surviving 2.5" internals, but the post wasn't specific.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

The 5-6TB layout works with the 20.7.2 as well, at least on Roamios. @nooneyouknow had 3 basic models that got the update yesterday.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Unfortunately for me I have a 6 and 8 and both failed.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

JCN said:


> Unfortunately for me I have a 6 and 8 and both failed.


What TiVos? Internal drives on a Roamio? Or external drives on a Bolt?

I'm just wondering, generally, has the problem/incompatibility of 20.7.2 and drives >4TB occurred in any setup OTHER than Bolts with external drives?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

ggieseke said:


> My 3TB Roamio Pro with an mfsr reformatted drive got the 20.7.2 update last night without any problems.


Same here.

Scott


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

justen_m said:


> What TiVos? Internal drives on a Roamio? Or external drives on a Bolt?
> 
> I'm just wondering, generally, has the problem/incompatibility of 20.7.2 and drives >4TB occurred in any setup OTHER than Bolts with external drives?


Bolts, external drives.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

I have seen one mention in another thread that an external drive that had been getting the 4 flashing lights while connected using the SATA-eSATA conversion cable did work again after trying to connect it directly with a normal SATA cable (just totally bypassing the external enclosure). Might want to give that a try. 

I can't think of any reason why that would work; maybe I misread it? But it is certainly a simple test that I would think would be worth the few minutes to try.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

Success! My 6TB WD Red is up and running with the latest firmware on my Bolt. Apparently the Bolt didn't like trying to connect through the multiple connectors and cables to access the external hard drive but a single SATA cable directly from the motherboard to the external drive resolved the issue. I still had to connect to the TiVo server twice to resolve the V312 error with Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Plex. Now all I have to do is call Comcast to reactivate the cable card for HBO and VOD. One last job will be to figure out how to mod the Bolt case and external enclosure to accommodate my single cable configuration.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Good for you. You tried a lot of different things and finally got a result that works. Do we think initially before you reformatted the drive and all that that if maybe just doing the cable thing direct would make it work and then be able to have kept all your recordings. That of course would be the perfect world for me.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

primaryforce said:


> One last job will be to figure out how to mod the Bolt case and external enclosure to accommodate my single cable configuration.


Perhaps a clean "look" might be to dremel out some of the cross hatches on the vent holes in the bottom of the case.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

JCN said:


> Good for you. You tried a lot of different things and finally got a result that works. Do we think initially before you reformatted the drive and all that that if maybe just doing the cable thing direct would make it work and then be able to have kept all your recordings. That of course would be the perfect world for me.


I think that if I would have implemented the single cable solution after I saw the initial "4 flashing lights of death" I may have kept all of my settings and recordings. Unfortunately, I will never know since I panicked and reformatted my 6TB drive. The good news is that there was not much content that I regret losing. The better news is that I now have regained 961 hours of HD storage on my Bolt for the upcoming fall TV season. The biggest pain was all the experimenting I went through to resolve the issue and now to figure out how do a permanent mod to the Bolt and external hard drive to accommodate the single cable solution.

Sent from my SM-T817T using Tapatalk


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

sfhub said:


> Perhaps a clean "look" might be to dremel out some of the cross hatches on the vent holes in the bottom of the case.


Thanks for the suggestion but since I already did the mark1958 mod to cut an opening of the back panel to mount the Sata to eSata adapter, I will just remove the adapter and create a slot for the flat cable to fit. I will then just need to purchase a new 12" Sata cable with a right angle connector to fit the low profile of the Bolt cover. Modifying the external Rosewall enclosure for the Sata cable should not be a major issue.


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

ggieseke said:


> Thanks for that! I just found at least one person with a 4TB Bolt that took the 20.7.2 upgrade without any problems.
> 
> "I have a white Bolt with the Seagate 4 TB drive. It updated to 20.7.2 with no issues. Is it possible your 4 TB drive failed? I am on my 2nd one. If this one fails too, I'm buying the 3 TB WD model that comes in the Bolt+. WeakKnees has it for sale now."
> 
> That said, it's still possible that they changed something and if I can figure out what what happened I'll fix it if I can. I don't have (or want) a Bolt, so I'm working blind here. At the very least it would require someone to image their entire drive and post it, or figure out how to hook it up to a PC and let me access it remotely.


I didn't mean to complain about reformatting my 6TB WD Red to resolve my "4 flashing lights of death" issue but I was frustrated since my MRS reformatted drive has been working flawlessly for over a year. As it turns out, the multiple interfaces and cables between the Bolt motherboard Sata port and the external hard drive were the source of the communication failure. In appreciation for ggieseke's efforts, I have sent him a small donation this evening.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

primaryforce said:


> I didn't mean to complain about reformatting my 6TB WD Red to resolve my "4 flashing lights of death" issue but I was frustrated since my MRS reformatted drive has been working flawlessly for over a year. As it turns out, the multiple interfaces and cables between the Bolt motherboard Sata port and the external hard drive were the source of the communication failure. In appreciation for ggieseke's efforts, I have sent him a small donation this evening.


Thanks for the posts and the donation, but sorry you lost your recordings and settings. I was getting worried that they changed something drastically on Bolts that broke mfsr-formatted drives, and I had to write the Bolt code "in the blind" because I don't have one. That makes troubleshooting tough.

No idea why it would go to 4 flashing lights when it worked before. They seem to be getting fussier about drives with each new update. I hope it's not another white-list situation like expanders, but my gut says it's probably just a driver incompatibility with the controller in the external enclosure. I bought a WD EasyStore a few months ago just to shuck the 8TB drive and it showed a completely different model number and serial number when in the enclosure than when the raw drive was hooked up directly.

Hope the Comcast repairing goes well. The online activation site seems to be working now, but every time I've called the dedicated hotline at 877-405-2298 it was a great experience. They even know the weird stuff like "I see that you have a Roamio, but you're missing the 'Premiere' activation code on your account that lets you get on demand".


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

primaryforce said:


> I didn't mean to complain about reformatting my 6TB WD Red to resolve my "4 flashing lights of death" issue but I was frustrated since my MRS reformatted drive has been working flawlessly for over a year. As it turns out, the multiple interfaces and cables between the Bolt motherboard Sata port and the external hard drive were the source of the communication failure. In appreciation for ggieseke's efforts, I have sent him a small donation this evening.


Classy move buddy. This forum is a hell of a tool.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

primaryforce said:


> ...*Modifying the external Rosewall enclosure* for the Sata cable should not be a major issue.


Rosewill, not Syba?

How old IS that enclosure?


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

ClearToLand said:


> Rosewill, not Syba?
> 
> How old IS that enclosure?


I bought this last year for $35 From Newegg . . .
Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B - External 3.5" SATA III 6 Gb/s Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA Connection, Aluminum Body, 80 mm Variable Speed Fan with On / Off Switch, LED Display Panel


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## primaryforce (Oct 15, 2015)

primaryforce said:


> I bought this last year for $35 From Newegg . . .
> Rosewill Armer RX304-APU3-35B - External 3.5" SATA III 6 Gb/s Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA Connection, Aluminum Body, 80 mm Variable Speed Fan with On / Off Switch, LED Display Panel


Still available at Amazon for the same price if you want to hurry and buy this antique.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

I will be removing the 6 terabyte hard drive from the enclosure and running direct cable from motherboard to the hard drive. I will keep you posted as far as what happens, to see if it actually boots and keeps my programs. I do have the original 500 gig hard drive running in the Bolt right now. Any words of wisdom from anybody before I do this is gladly accepted.


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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

Okay so I pulled the rear cover off the Roswell case. Disconnected the SATA drive that goes to the board inside the case and ran a SATA cable from the TiVo board directly to the SATA plug on the hard drive. Booted everything up did its thing and it's up and running the only thing is I have no programs recorded. When I go to the system information it shows me that my recording capacity is 1283 HD and free disk is 1281 HD. I didn't look at the drive directly but I think this was the 8 terabyte. I was wondering if my capacity is correct for the drive since I'm assuming it is wiped clean.


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## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

Yes I just did an 8TB upgrade for my Roamio last weekend.. 1283 HD free space is the correct amount.

I also tried to update my Bolt to a 3TB before it took the update, which was downloaded and wanted to complete the upgrade after the 3TB was put in. The result was that it was stuck in the Firmware update screen overnight so I had to put back the original 500GB to complete the update and then put the new 3TB back to Bolt to be reformatted.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

JCN said:


> Okay so I pulled the rear cover off the Roswell case. Disconnected the SATA drive that goes to the board inside the case and ran a SATA cable from the TiVo board directly to the SATA plug on the hard drive. Booted everything up did its thing and it's up and running the only thing is I have no programs recorded. When I go to the system information it shows me that my recording capacity is 1283 HD and free disk is 1281 HD. I didn't look at the drive directly but I think this was the 8 terabyte. I was wondering if my capacity is correct for the drive since I'm assuming it is wiped clean.


That is the correct size for 8 TB.

Just to make sure what you did with this drive and Bolt let me summarize and correct me if I misunderstood.

Your Bolt with and externalized 8 TB drive started the 4 flashing lights after an update.

You disconnected the drive and put back your original drive which booted up correctly.

You then reconnected your original 8 TB drive with a SATA cable from the Bolt directly to your drive skipping the enclosure and the Bolt booted up on that drive but all your recordings are gone (nothing in the deleted folder) and you retained you 8 TB of recording space.

At no time did you run MFSR on the 8 TB drive.

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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

jmbach said:


> That is the correct size for 8 TB.
> 
> Just to make sure what you did with this drive and Bolt let me summarize and correct me if I misunderstood.
> 
> ...


That is correct. The 6tb just keeps Loading and never completes. I have powered off the HD and Tivo to try and resolve it.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

That is an interesting finding for the following reason. 

When people tried to use MFSTools 3.2 to copy their smaller drive to a larger drive, it would fail because MFSTools could not write the correct APM because the Bolt APM has zero byte partitions for the bootstrap, root, and kernel partitions. So they would try to boot the drive and it would not boot and then they put the original drive in and all their programs are lost. (This is in contrast to the Roamio which we do not see that behavior.) The interesting thing in your case is that the Bolt did not reformat the drive but permanently deleted the recordings. (unless you see them in the deleted folder and then you can undelete them) This has me a little concern that of MFSTools gets fixed, the Bolt OS may still delete all recordings. 

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## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

No I checked the deleted folders first thing and nothing there. I was hoping.


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