# Tivoless



## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

Hi,

My Tivo seems to have hit a major problem yesterday evening while I was out.

When I switched on the TV I found that the Tivo was constantly rebooting itself, and on plugging in this morning it still does the same.

It gets as far as the 'A few more seconds' message, then displays the green 'severe error' screen. After showing this for around five seconds, the Tivo then reboots, and the whole cycle repeats.

Whilst this is more entertaining than yesterday's cup final, I'd like my Tivo to do something else other than that.

Anyone recognise these symptoms and can confidently point to the problem?

The Tivo has had two mainboard repairs previously but this issue doesn't match what happened when those were carried out.

I'm considering a replacement should one be required. I see Tivoland is still selling. I'm also seriously considering Sky+ for the first time.

Watching TV without Tivo seems really strange. I don't like it.  

Jason.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Sounds like a hard drive fault - probably corruption cause by a faulty sector or three. 

There is also a remote chance that it might be the PSU, but I'd recommend replacing the drive as a first step.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Sounds like drive corruption to me - a new image, or new drive would solve it.

I'd have said PSU if you didn't get the green screen.

[edit] heh - great minds eh?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Your problem can be resolved either by doing the hard drive replacement process entirely yourself following the instructions at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade3.html or by buying the Hooch download from www.tivoheaven.com (both rely on you having a Desktop PC kicking around somewhere though) or you can buy a preconfigured new hard drive upgrade from www.tivoheaven.com or www.tivoland.com that you can just drop in.

Either way you end up with a Tivo with a much larger hard drive capacity than what sounds like just your current 40Gb worth?

Why was your motheboard repaired twice as that is very unusual. Was it in the early days for the NICAM bug?


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

Thanks for the replies!

The drive in the Tivo is a 120GB model, bought from Pacelink a couple of years ago (might be more), so I guess it could be that.

I actually just remembered I still have the original 40GB drive so I'll slap that into my Tivo and see what happens.

The mainboard was repaired because of a rebooting issue (not like the current issue though) which eventually resulted in a failure to boot at all, getting stuck at the 'almost there' message. Also stopped getting updates. When it tried it would get stuck during the process. I think it was at least partly down to a dodgy modem chip, but it did seem more complicated than that. Cost me a packet to get it repaired first time by Pacelink. The second time it happened, about a year later, they repaired it again, but for their minimum fee since it seemed like it was the same issue.

Even now it occasionally goes through a little period of rebooting itself or locking up when watching TV. Annoying but I can live with it. After a week or two it suddenly seems to clear itself and works fine!

I checked out the links. Tivo Heaven gives some interesting info about Mode 0 recording which would be useful to me as I have an LCD TV where artifacts are more noticable than my old TV.

Then again, taking into account the occasional reboot issue, maybe I should get a whole new system whilst they are still available. But maybe the reboot thing was a warning about the drive failing. Darn, too many options.....

Anyway, I'll put in my old drive and see if the Tivo boots up. If not I guess it's a new system.

I'm still a little tempted by Sky+. It has the advantage of being able to record two things at once, but it does lock me into always having to subscribe to Sky if I want to be able to use it. Did look at SkyHD but it's still too pricey at the moment.

Jason.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

If you have a Lifetime Sub then don't forget you need Tivo Customer Services special agreement to transfer it to another model. They will usually do that these days given that a repair service is not available.

I don't like the sound of the so called Repairs at Pacelink (who few people seem to recommend or use these days) and I wonder if the problem was not software related all along.

If you buy a prepared drive from TivoHeaven it will be from a fresh image so should get rid of any software corruption. If you stil get the problems you will know it is really your motherboard. You could then buy a secondhand unsubbed Tivo on Ebay and ask Tivo headoffice to transfer the sub.

I hope this helps.

Putting your old drives back in your Tivo should work fine.


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

I bought the bigger drive back when I first had the problems with the rebooting, and updates. The reason I bought it (other than giving myself more storage) was to see if it cleared up the problem which would obviously point to a corruption of the software on the old one. It didn't make any difference though.

I wouldn't send it for repair again. I'd rather just buy a 'new' system from Tivoland.

I'm off to test out the old drive in my Tivo. If you hear the faint sound of swearing coming from the direction of Bucks, it didn't work!

Jason.


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

Well, I put my old drive back in, and the Tivo now boots, so everyone was right!

I'm very interested in the Mode 0 option so I'm going to order a drive from Tivo Heaven. I had my eye on the 400GB model, but there is a 250GB drive for the same price, but is one designed specifically for PVR use.

I'm wondering if the 250GB might actually be a more sensible choice. Anyone with an opinion on this?

Jason.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

It depends on your requirements 

The 400gb HD400lD is a very nice, quiet drive and will give you oodles of space, but you could run into problems with menu slowdown if you don't have a cachecard + RAM fitted. 

The 250gb HA250JC is a 5400rpm drive, is quieter and runs much cooler and with less vibration than the 400gb drive but has less capacity, although this also means less chance of serious menu slowdown without a cachecard.

Personally, if I didn't need the extra 150gb I'd go for the HA250JC, but I suspect Pete will advise you to go for the HD400LD as it looks like better value for money


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Kadoogan said:


> I'm very interested in the Mode 0 option so I'm going to order a drive from Tivo Heaven. I had my eye on the 400GB model, but there is a 250GB drive for the same price, but is one designed specifically for PVR use.


No only the very expensive HA250JC Samsung hard drive (that costs more than the 400GB one does) is allegedly designed specifically for PVR use (mainly because it spins at 5400rpm rather than 7200rpm so runs coolers and quieter). However the main reason it is expensive is because it was discontinued over 18 months ago and is priced at what drives of this size used to cost back then.

If I was buying a hard drive for a Tivo now I would buy the 400GB one, except that to get the most out of that you really need a Cachecard and 512MB of RAM too. However if you record everything on your 400Gb drive in Mode 0 with no VBR (maximum possible quality) that will only be about 100 hours or so of recordings so you should avoid the slowdown without a Cachecard you will get if you use lower recording quality and so have more program hours on your 400Gb drive, unless you have a Cachecard and the RAM

Cue Blindlemon to tell us just how great the Samsung HA250JC drives really are, at least in his opinion............


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

LOL - just beat you to it


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Cue Blindlemon to tell us just how great the Samsung HA250JC drives really are, at least in his opinion............


Damn I see he beat me to it.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

...and I beat you to that observation too


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

I sense I'll be upsetting one of you!  

Still not sure which way to go. I like the idea of the cachecard speeding up the menus, but buying the drive (with Mode 0), the card and memory comes to £269. Not sure I want to be spending that kind of money at the moment.

To be honest the extra 150GB of the bigger drive isn't a major issue. I rarely have a problem running out of space with my current 120GB. I'm sure I would use the space if I had it though. Apparantly at the best setting the smaller drive gives 66 hours of recording space. It's unlikely I'd ever need more than that.

I also like the fact the 250GB runs cooler. I don't have an issue with noise on my current drive so doubt it would be an issue with either option.

But the thought of that extra 150Gb for the same money is still a pretty good case for going that way.

I would want Mode 0 on the new drive and with 400GB to play with I'd certainly switch off VBR to get the best quality I can, so maybe I could get away without the cachecard.

I'll think it over some more. 250GB is probably looking favourite though. Sorry Pete!

Thanks again for all the great advice!

Jason.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Kadoogan said:


> I also like the fact the 250GB runs cooler. I don't have an issue with noise on my current drive so doubt it would be an issue with either option.
> 
> But the thought of that extra 150Gb for the same money is still a pretty good case for going that way.
> 
> ...


Let me further complicate your decision making process by admitting I have had two of these HA250JC Samsung drives in my Tivo for just one month short of two years and I am very happy with them in terms of their quietness and reliability. However my Tivo reports a constant 37C when the room here is at a normal 20 to 21C (the previous Quantum drives ran at only 27C) so I am not entirely convinced about blindlemon's claims they are so much cooler than other large hard drives. However certain aspects of their design do seem to favour a long life in PVR use, whereas some other Samsung hard drive models do seem to have had less long average lives in a Tivo.

Ultimately it has to be your decision but don't forget if 250Gb is enough for you that Tivoheaven have a much cheaper 250Gb Samsung drive you could choose and then keep that money to use when buying a Cachecard later.

Its clear you don't need as much recording capacity as me as after 2 years I have now nearly filled up 613 hours at Basic with programs I either don't want to delete or mean to (even though I probably won't manage it) get round to watching some time. Although having said that once you have the extra capacity you tend to start to get used to not having to delete things.

In any event the choice is yours.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Tivo reports system temperature in tivoweb, not actual drive temperature.

You can put smartctl on your tivo to find out the real drive temperatures, 
but anything under 45 C (hand warm) is fine.

If the drive is too hot to touch, then it won't last long (60C is too hot to touch)


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Tivo reports system temperature in tivoweb, not actual drive temperature.
> 
> You can put smartctl on your tivo to find out the real drive temperatures,
> but anything under 45 C (hand warm) is fine.
> ...


Current smartctl reported temperatures on my Tivo are 37C for Drive A and 40C for Drive B but then my system temperature (the one from System Information) is 39C today due to the warmer spring weather heating up my living room temperature a little.

I would add that last summer my system temperature got as high as 46C one day, although I didn't know how to use smartctl at that stage to get the actual drive temperatures. And I live in the countryside and not in a hot town centre.

Drive A has always reported a higher temperature than Drive B, presumably due to being nearer to the hot power supply.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I am not entirely convinced about blindlemon's claims they [HA250JC] are so much cooler than other large hard drives.


...and what other large hard drives have you compared them to Pete?

IME (handling these drives every day) I can quite honestly say that the HA250JCs are the coolest 250gb drives I have ever handled, and they are even cooler when you compare them to 400gb drives :up:


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> ...and what other large hard drives have you compared them to Pete?


I only have experience in the Tivo of the 30Gb and 15Gb Quantums that operated in the system temperature range 27C to 30C instead of the system temperature range of 33C to 46C of these two Samsung drives.

So are you saying two HDLD 400Gb drives in my Tivo might run above 45C thus actually shortening their potential operating lives?

Of course I do realise two drives run several C hotter than one in the same box but look at how much cooler my old admittedly noisy Quantums used to run.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I am not entirely convinced about blindlemon's claims they are so much cooler than other large hard drives.





blindlemon said:


> what other large hard drives have you compared them to Pete?





Pete77 said:


> I only have experience in the Tivo of the 30Gb and 15Gb Quantums


Classic Pete there!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Perhaps if blindlemon would give us a table of the operating temperatures of various makes of current large hard drives in single and dual drive configurations running in a room with a temperature of a stable 21C we might start to get somewhere.

The only point I was making was that my supposedly crappy old Quantums ran in the same Tivo unit at an operating range 10C to 16C below that of my current Samsung HA250JC drives.

Now if that is the case I dread to think at what temperature two of the new 1TB Hitachi drives might run at in a Tivo.  

I note that when self styled Tivo guru TCM is wrong on something like Freeview Playback's spec including Series Link that he soon goes quiet and shuts up.

I note that the real gurus of this forum like Ljay don't actually seem to have the time to spend on point scoring banter as they are always too busy with attending to weightier and more significant matters of software development.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Perhaps if blindlemon would give us a table of the operating temperatures of various makes of current large hard drives in single and dual drive configurations running in a room with a temperature of a stable 21C we might start to get somewhere.


And how much are you willing to pay for my time to complete this pointless task?

I currently only supply Samsung drives as they have proved themselves to be the best for TiVo use, but I can easily summarise what the findings of such an exercise would be if you like: _The big drives run hotter than the smaller ones, but the HA250JC is the coolest of the lot._

How's that?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> _The big drives run hotter than the smaller ones, but the HA250JC is the coolest of the lot._


So the HA250JC is one of the few larger drives suitable for a dual drive configuration it would seem?

How much hotter would you expect two Samsung 400GB HD LD T series drives to run? Presumably at normally 40C up to say 50C and hence close to temps where their operating lives could expect to be shortened?

If detailed analysis of such data is meaningless then why did so many people find the Google hard drive reliability figures of interest? Also you do have quite a lot of experience with larger Seagate drives which at one time (pre Samsung HA250JC) you used to consider to be the Holy Grail for Tivo deployment


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I note that when self styled Tivo guru TCM is wrong on something like Freeview Playback's spec including Series Link that he soon goes quiet and shuts up.
> 
> I note that the real gurus of this forum like Ljay don't actually seem to have the time to spend on point scoring banter as they are always too busy with attending to weightier and more significant matters of software development.


Please find any occasion when I have styled myself a "guru". Should be easy, there's a full search on the forum. Or did you just make that up?

A Freeview Playback box with series link style technology does not exist. You conceded that, so there was little more to say.

Many people, probably rightly, don't rise to your bait. For me, it's a nice way to de-stress after work to see what nonsense you've posted today and point out its obvious flaws. Much better than getting cross with someone who matters.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> So the HA250JC is one of the few larger drives suitable for a dual drive configuration it would seem?


I guess you won't be surprised to hear that's what I recommend.



Pete77 said:


> How much hotter would you expect two Samsung 400GB HD LD T series drives to run?


Contrary to what you seem to think, I don't really have the time to spend days/weeks measuring and analysing the characteristics of various drives in minute detail. The Samsung HD400LD drives, in isolation, run a bit hotter than Samsung's 7200rpm 250gb drives and significantly hotter than a single HA250JC. However, from what I recall, they are also a bit cooler than the Seagate 7200.8, 7200.9, DB35.1 and DB35.2 series 400gb drives and significantly cooler than Seagate 7200.9 500gb drives.



Pete77 said:


> If detailed analysis of such data is meaningless then why did so many people find the Google hard drive reliability figures of interest?


Firstly, the data we're talking about is running temperature in a TiVo, whereas the Google data was overall reliability which is clearly a subject of wider interest.

FWIW, the HA250JC has also been the most reliable drive I've ever sold. Period.


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

I think I will go for the HA250JC.

My Tivo has been processing guide data all afternoon, and has just failed saying 'failed loading series'. I'm hoping this isn't a symptom of another issue and has been caused by an issue with the 40GB drive I put back in it.

Jason.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Kadoogan said:


> I think I will go for the HA250JC.
> 
> My Tivo has been processing guide data all afternoon, and has just failed saying 'failed loading series'. I'm hoping this isn't a symptom of another issue and has been caused by an issue with the 40GB drive I put back in it.
> 
> Jason.


Has to be your decision Jason. An HA250JC will probably last for the rest of your Tivo's lifetime, although if stocks had totally run out and the 400Gb Samsung or even the cheaper faster 250Gb Samsungs were the only option you would probably be equally happy with them.

To be honest a Cachecard and TivoWeb is a much bigger enhancement to Tivo life, so you shouldn't do anything that puts you off buying one of those. They are quite cheap at the moment from all the main sources due to the pound to dollar exchange rate. You would need £30 worth or so of memory to get the most out of one, although if you have any PC100 or PC133 SDRAMs knocking round between 128MB and 512MB in size they would also do the job.


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## SilkMan (Feb 13, 2007)

See the following for a similar "failed loading series" error:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=332042



PhilG said:


> I thought I'd drop some notes here to save other people from the stress I experienced this morning!!
> 
> Background:
> I had a 200Gb drive that had started throwing MANY i/o errors. Reached the point where playing some recordings would prompt a spontaneous reboot and sometimes the cachecard load would hang with an "I/O error" message
> ...


HTH


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

Cheers for that SilkMan.

I set off another update overnight, and checked the status this morning. It worked fine this time.

To be honest I need to redo the guided set up anyway as the channel line-up will have changed quite a bit since I last used the 40GB drive, but as I have just ordered a new 250GB drive from Tivoheaven, it's not worth spending the time doing all that for a couple of day's use.

I considered getting a cachecard as well, but couldn't justify the cost. If menu speed slows down too much I'll get one later.

Jason.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Kadoogan said:


> I considered getting a cachecard as well, but couldn't justify the cost. If menu speed slows down too much I'll get one later.


But could justify the extra cost of a very expensive HA250JC drive? 

You are aware a Cachecard doesn't just speed up your Tivo listings but gives you access to Tivoweb, Daily Mail and all that kind of stuff?? And would make much more difference to your Tivo using experience than the HA250JC will. For instance being able to shedule recordings on your Tivo or reboot it from work, overseas web cafe or on your mobile phone.

Have you tried checking the price of Cachecards from the main seller of them on Ebay lately?


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## Kadoogan (Dec 5, 2004)

I don't know why you seem to be taking my decision so hard Pete!

I wanted what looks like the most reliable drive I can get. Considering I am having Mode 0 recording set up on it, and will most likely stick to using the best setting, it will store up to 66 hours of TV. I don't have a huge amount of season passes set up, so I doubt I will actually need a cachecard. Setting my Tivo from work is one of those things that seems a cool idea, but in practice is something I will never use.

Therefore, I could not justify the extra cost of buying one, plus the memory to fit to it.

Jason.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Using VBR you will probably get a bit more than 66 hours Mode 0 "best" from a 250gb drive as the 66 hours estimate is based on a constant bitrate of 7500000 whereas, in practice, the encoder will manage to use a lower bitrate than this most of the time anyway. 

However, you will be unlikely to see much slowdown without a cachecard wheher it's 66, 76 or 106 hours


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Kadoogan said:


> Therefore, I could not justify the extra cost of buying one, plus the memory to fit to it.


It seems a rather small cost over several years in relation to the extra functionality provided but ultimately you should go for what is right for you.

As to hard drives I would tend to see them as consumables, as they don't last the life of the machine, whereas the Cachecard should last for the machine's lifetime.

I guess I am only perhaps making your decision hard if your subsconscious has a nagging doubt about saving the extra money for a Cachecard versus buying the more expensive Samsung HA250JC?

Ultimately you should do what is right for you though, but I do feel that people who have not used Tivoweb and its extra functions for controlling Tivo from even your home PC do not appreciate what they are missing. I have yet to hear from anyone who got a network card and Tivoweb who ao far regrets their decision........


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## timborubio (Mar 22, 2005)

I've just had exactly the same symptoms as Kadoogan this weekend, i.e. constant cycle of rebooting, 'few seconds more', green screen, reboot again. I don't mind replacing the disk, having done this before, but I'd be disappointed to lose all the recordings I haven't watched yet - and it's already a 160gbyte disk, pretty full at that. When I mount the disk with MFStools on a spare PC, I get a mesage that the primary zone map is corrupt, and it has to use a backup. Anyone know if it's possible to repair this, and/or reinstall the Tivo O/S without wiping the whole disk clean - or is it impossible to keep the database of recordings under those circumstances?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I have never been able to recover a drive from this state - sorry 

Having said that, have you tried forcing a GSOD?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

TiVo's recordings are not kept in a conventional filesystem, instead the database references where on the disk they are. If the database is corrupt then the recordings can't be found, sorry.


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## timborubio (Mar 22, 2005)

Hmmm, I don't know whether it's the database that's corrupt or some other part of the disk - this machine reboots itself very early on in the startup sequence, way before any programme information gets displayed or anything like that.
Thanks for the GSOD tip BlindLemon. I tried the instructions at the Tivo Diagnostics wiki page - only the most drastic sounding sequence (58) seemed to make any difference at all - and that was only to very very briefly show a 'system is installing new software' message before the GSOD appeared again and the system almost immediately rebooted again - and continued to reboot over and over again. Looks like I'm going to need a new disk...


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Last chance attempt could be to use dd_rescue from the  MFS Live CD to copy it to a new disk.

Some instructions here: 
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5029838#post5029838
though its only really the dd-rescue command with 2 disks connected.

I did do this once when my tivo was in a similar reboot loop
- dd-rescue took more than 12 hours - must have been a real bad disk!)

It did work well enough for tivo to sort it out with the new drive.

It worked ok, but must have been some remaining corruption on the new drive
as it was all very slow with long delays between menus- I pulled the recordings off it, and did a fresh blank image.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

timborubio said:


> Looks like I'm going to need a new disk...


You might want to also check out the options for buying a pre configured drive or fo buying the Hooch download that can install the Tivo software, Tivoweb and Cachecard drivers in one fell swoop as an automated sequence at www.tivoheaven.co.uk. Also are you aware of the www.steveconrad.co.uk/upgrade3.html guide. And just for fairness I ought to mention Healey Dave and www.tivoland.com

The 400Gb Samsung HD LD drive with 3 year warranty, and which is very quiet can be bought for £60 delivered at www.komplett.co.uk. However blindlemon will point out that he considers the now deleted but still available Samsung HA250JC drive superior as it runs cooler and even quieter in a Tivo as it only runs at 5400rpm and was specially designed for PVR use. But it is a very expensive 250Gb drive these days compared to other 250Gb drives.


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