# Problem with cachecard/tivo after shipping



## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

Ok guys, I've got a tricky problem going on that I hope someone can offer some advice on. I'm currently on assignment with Peace Corps Moldova and was really hoping to have my Slingbox equipped Tivo Sony SVR-2000 set-up and configured for some long-distance viewing. I am lucky enough to have obscenely fast (for Moldova at least) 2mb/sec DSL service here in the capital. 

The problem started with the necessity to ship my Tivo cross-country to my parents house before leaving for Peace Corps. Unfortunately it arrived there after I had already left and I was forced to have my father set it all up. Yet more unfortunate was that despite my insanely overprotective packing job the cachecard had dislodged during transit, but was unnoticed until my father attempted to boot up the machine. 

Through my coaching he was able to reinstall the cachecard, however during the cachecard boot-up processes, it proceeds normally through the writing and verifying, but has an unspecified error and red screen when it comes to the caching phase. Apparently it will proceed to boot up normally after this point, but fails and reboots during the setup process. 

Before shipment the machine was working flawlessly, with 2 x 120 GB drives installed. My question is whether based on these symptoms the problem could be as simple as damaged ram or cachecard, or whether there is a more fundamental problem with the Tivo? 

I have gone ahead and ordered a new ram card, but I'm hesitant to proceed further without a more clear idea of what might be causing the problem. 

Any suggestions or guesses for a Peace Corps volunteer desperately missing his Tivo?

Thanks in advance!!

Will


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## BiloxiGeek (Nov 18, 2001)

Did you coach him through verifying that the memory stick is still seated properly in the cache card? If the card came loose it seems possible that the ram stick may have come loose from the cache card as well.


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## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

Thanks for the response!!

Based on the cachecard boot error there would almost certainly seem to be something amiss here, whether it be damage or simply an unseated card. I told him to check that the ram card was fully seated, but it's hard to know for sure. The new ram should be arriving today so he'll be opening it up again. 

I guess my question is really whether a problem with the ram or cachecard would cause the Tivo to unexpectedly reboot as it's been doing, or whether it's more likely to be a bigger problem with the tivo itself. 

Thanks again


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## BiloxiGeek (Nov 18, 2001)

If it's rebooting during the cache card stuff I'd definitely suspect ram or the cache card. Replacing the ram stick is probably a good thing to at least try since it won't cost much. You might also have Pops try booting without the cache card installed, and if that works try it with the cache card but no ram stick. If I remember correctly that will make the cache card function like the TurboNet cards. You get ethernet but no caching.


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## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

Well, after my last post I ordered up some new ram and had good old Dad back in the states install it in the cachecard. Unfortunately the problem remained and so things stalled for a few months. 

Last month however I was unexpectedly back home and had a chance to check things over myself. At that point the Tivo was hanging on the "Your recorder is starting up, please wait a moment...". I opened it up and it was pretty clear one of the two hard drives was not spinning up. 

Ok...easy fix, I said to myself as I ordered up a new 500GB drive to replace my 2x120GB setup. Restored from my backup using the LBA48 disc and the copykern command, installed it in the Tivo and all seemed to be well again, no problems with the cachecard. 

Fast-Forward 2 weeks and I'm back in eastern europe watching some slingboxed Tivo and it's suddenly clear that the copykern command did not work correctly. Recorded programs are missing or showing up as entirely different programs. 

So now I decide it's time to suck it up and buy a copy of Instantcake and get a friend back home to do a new restore. But sometime during the last few days the Tivo evidently crashed/rebooted and is showing the "Your recorder is starting up, please wait a moment" screen. My parents report that the hard drive does appear to be spinning up, but subsequent reboots have not brought it back to life. 

So to wrap things up, is there any way that running a >137GB drive with an unmodiffied kernel would prevent the system from booting?

Or am I just the victim of bad luck with a new drive?

Or could there be some other underlying problem?

I'll probably go ahead with having someone restore using the Instantcake image, which should tell me if it's a bad drive or not, but I was hoping someone could ease my nerves and tell me whether this is a normal result from a botched copykern. 

Thanks again, 

Will


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

wirobins said:


> Well, after my last post I ordered up some new ram and had good old Dad back in the states install it in the cachecard. Unfortunately the problem remained and so things stalled for a few months.
> 
> Last month however I was unexpectedly back home and had a chance to check things over myself. At that point the Tivo was hanging on the "Your recorder is starting up, please wait a moment...". I opened it up and it was pretty clear one of the two hard drives was not spinning up.
> 
> ...


The best way to determine whether you have a bad drive or not is to run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it. Even though using InstantCake on a drive, and having it not work, might be an indication of a bad drive, its also possible that it WILL work and your drive might still be bad - only to give you troubles later on down the line.

So... if you are going to go to all the trouble of taking your unit apart and connecting the drive(s) to your PC, I'd go to the Seagate or Samsung web site (or the site for whatever type of drive you are using) and download their diags which are typicaly free.

Then run basic, advance and 'low-level' format your drive; if you get errors, get a new drive, and then test that one before installing InstantCake on it...

Lou


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## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

Thanks lou, I'll have them give the diagnostics a try before proceeding any further. 

-will


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## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

another quick question...

I remember when doing my original upgrade 7 years ago I needed to unlock my tivo drive using qunlock before linux could view the full drive size. 

Is this likely to be a problem with the 500GB WD drive that I am now removing to test and re-do with Instantcake?

Since I can't actually be there to do the job myself I just want to be aware of any possible complications. 

thanks again, will


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## wirobins (Sep 5, 2003)

so...it was a dead hard drive after all. WD disk utilities wouldn't even recognize the drive despite the fact that it was spinning up. 

Warranty replacement should be here this week, you can bet I'll be testing it before installation. 

thanks for the advice, 

Will


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