# Another sad day...hard disk dies...



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Well looks like my year 2000 Tivo with 2005 drives couldn't survive the 10 o'clock news last night...paused and stuttered during Harriet Harmans commons speech...rebooted and got stuck at "powering up please wait"

Just run Seagate tools on the 200GB drive A and it failed....just running long diagnostics now and found 67 errors, but is still going. Might let it attempt to recover to see if it might boot.

Will move onto testing 300GB drive B later.

So looks like a visit to TivoLand or TiVoCentral for me (might as well replace PSU whilst at it).

I do have a backup of /VAR on my, generated by the once weekly VAR backup program, but dated Feb 2008 (whoops)....

So what .ISO file do I need to be able to mount the two disks to see I can get a later VAR backup from it ?

I will have the two TiVo drives on IDE channel 0 and a FAT32 formated disk and CDROM on other IDE channel, I assume this is correct ?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

You can't byteswap on primary master
(i.e. can't mount it to look at /var)

So you'll be better off putting the tivo disks on the secondary IDE channel.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

So can I..

Primary master -> CD-ROM 

Secondary master-> TiVo A drive.
Secondary slave -> FAT 32 disk.

?

Its just the that motherboard I have has a 2.5" secondary IDE connector (primary is 3.5" style) and the cable I have has 2.5" to only one 2.5" and one 3.5" connector.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Yep - that would be fine.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Ian_m said:


> (might as well replace PSU whilst at it).


Just in case either of them don't have any in stock, I have a couple here if you (or anyone!) wants to make my an offer


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Drive A has finished full surface testing and I let it correct 67 duff sectors.

Will see if it will boot in TiVo when I have finished testing drive B.

Just started testing the 300GB drive B, 20% so far so good.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

cwaring said:


> Just in case either of them don't have any in stock, I have a couple here if you (or anyone!) wants to make my an offer


Yes please. I will PM you.

How come you have ended up with spare PSUs ? (I assume they are not from spare TiVo's)


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Disk B passed full diagnostics fine.

However using "ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso" boot CD boots fine, finds a disk for HDC (can see in startup) but....

Trying to "mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt9" gets "mount: you must specify the file system type".

"pdisk /dev/hdc" and "p" gets no partition exists.

Looks like disk is lost....


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

It is disk A you are trying to mount isn't it ? (you mention disk B above...)
The tivo system is on disk A


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

mikerr said:


> It is disk A you are trying to mount isn't it ? (you mention disk B above...)
> The tivo system is on disk A


It has a master link made. It comes up on BIOS boot as secondary master.

I will try the other disk anyway...but....not looking good


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

mikerr said:


> It is disk A you are trying to mount isn't it ? (you mention disk B above...)
> The tivo system is on disk A


It has a master link made. It comes up on BIOS boot as secondary master.

I will try the other disk anyway...but....not looking good 

Is there a byteswap command/startup parameter I should be aware of ?

Other disk comes up as HDD and PDISK reports no partition table.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

So it goes like this....

TiVo (Novemeber 2000) £400
Lifetime sub £200
2 x 80GB disks (Feb 2002) £240
200GB + 300GB (July 2005) £200
PSU £20
New remotes(s) £20
Cache card £90

New 500GB + PSU + fan £125
(today)

about £1300....and worth every penny....


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

You should be thankful you weren't paying &#163;10/month for nearly 10 years like many did !


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Ian_m said:


> How come you have ended up with spare PSUs ? (I assume they are not from spare TiVo's)


You're right; they're not. I bought them way back when I first got my Tivo "just in case". Never needed them. They're brand-spanking new, still in the wrapping! I was considering selling them back to whoever it ws I bought them off 



mikerr said:


> You should be thankful you weren't paying £10/month for nearly 10 years like many did !


/me holds hand up.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Well an update.

1. Put disks back in system. (Drive A having been repaired by SeaTools).
2. TiVo booted, after cachecard loading screen (whoopee) it GSOD (green screen of death) (oh bum).
3. Left connected to both phone and ethernet and after a while rebooted to normal TiVo menu 
4. Got in with Telnet, FTP ran VARbackup and copied resulting file to PC.
5. Ran season pass backup from TiVoWeb.
6. Going to bed now leaving it copying recordings I would like to keep to my PC. Hopefully still alive in the morning.....


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Nice save.

So, still got two band new Tivo PSUs here if anyone wants one; or both


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Further updates....

Managed to get the more interesting recordings off my failing but recovered TiVo onto my Popcorn Hour, where they play fine. In fact play better quality than via TiVo, but I suppose that is because the Popcorn doesn't have the extra MPEG2 -> analogue SCART -> TV -> digital in the chain.

Whilst fiddling last night, the TiVo froze and the number of re_allocated_sectors on the failing drive has gone up from 15 to 40, so not much longer left on that one.

A 500GB disk, PSU and fan has arrived and will be fitted tonight.

Could have fitted at work today, but I am supposed to do some work at work and would not have gained much as I will still need to run guided setup with my postcode, which requires a TV.

Hopefully I should be able untar my HACK backup and reload my season pass backup and live happily ever after....


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

Ian_m said:


> So it goes like this....
> 
> TiVo (Novemeber 2000) £400
> Lifetime sub £200
> ...


My four penn'orth on TiVo costs;

1 x TiVo (September 2000) - £399
1 x 120GB HDD (June 2004) - £120
1 x Terbonet Card (June 2004) - £38
1 x 1m CAT5 Patch Cable (June 2004) - £1.50
1 x 5m Ethernet (September 2009) - £10

Hardware Total - £568.50

117 x Monthly Sub - £1170

Total - £1738.50

Money well spent!!:up::up:

Just got a Humax HD box for HD football for the world cup. Easy setup, remote OKish, guide quite good, folders good, iPlayer excellent, PQ pretty good.

No skip-back awful, haven't managed to archive any recordings yet, WAF poor (it has taken her 10 years to accept TiVo)

Overall a good addition but no TiVo replacement which you all knew anyway.

Martin


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## Major dude (Oct 28, 2002)

Just had a similar occurrence with my older TiVo 1.
Had a mystery call at 0300 this morning and thought TiVo might be to blame and think I changed the remote address by mistake. Anyway first thing I tried to turn on TiVo one and it failed to respond to the remote. So I rebooted only for that to fail after repeating once and up came the GSOD.

Fortunately it reset itself after a couple of hours. Just returned from holiday so there is a big backlog of viewing on the HDD so it would have been disappointing to have lost it all.

Does a GSOD screen mean that the HDD is on the way out or does this happen on occasions and I have just been lucky up to now?

By the way I am using an iPad to write this and the screen keyboard is much better than I expected......and it is sooooo fast.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I'm more curious about this 3am 'mystery call'


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Major dude said:


> Does a GSOD screen mean that the HDD is on the way out or does this happen on occasions and I have just been lucky up to now?


Experience shows that your hard drive is normally on the way out when a GSOD appears.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

Major dude said:


> Does a GSOD screen mean that the HDD is on the way out or does this happen on occasions and I have just been lucky up to now?


Also look for Re-allocated sectors on the drive report from SMARTCTL.

My A drive had had the following for a while, a clear indication of a drive starting to fail.

```
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 17
```


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> Experience shows that your hard drive is normally on the way out when a GSOD appears.


Not necessarily.

It is the equivalent of a CHKDSK or SCANDISK error on a PC, and can also be caused by software bugs, power-glitches, multi-tasking issues, etc.

If the TiVo thinks that there is any problem with the filesystem/database it will trigger a GSOD in the same way as Windows will trigger a CHKDSK or SCANDISK to fix filesystem errors. A GSOD looks more frightening than it is.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

In fact I have been logging my SMART data since 2005 and really should have acted on impending drive failure earlier...


```
Sat Sep 15 04:30:04 localtime 2007
Drive hda
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 12
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 081 081 000 Old_age - 16758
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 43
Drive hdb
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 083 083 000 Old_age - 15666
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 43
...
```
Right back in 2007 it was obvious there was an impending issue with drive A. My logs before that were wiped when my /VAR directory was "cleaned"...


```
Thu May 27 04:30:01 localtime 2010
Drive hda
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 17
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 055 055 000 Old_age - 39778
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 79
Drive hdb
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 056 056 000 Old_age - 38899
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 80
```
Here we go...rapidly increasing reallocated sectors, and dead TiVo


```
Thu May 27 20:56:24 localtime 2010
Drive hda
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 099 099 036 Old_age - 40
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 055 055 000 Old_age - 39794
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 81
Drive hdb
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Old_age - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 056 056 000 Old_age - 38915
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age - 82
```
After repair by SeaTools and GSOD back into life but reallocated sectors at 40.


```
Fri May 28 21:41:19 localtime 2010
Drive hda
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 005 Old_age - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age - 4
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age - 7
```
A replacement 500GB disk, no reallocated sectors and only 4 hours old....


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