# Tivo HD Series 3 drive upgrade



## tha_toadman

Hey everyone,

Hopefully this one should be quick and painless. My question is that if I've purchased a 500GB WD AV-GP drive for my upgrade, can I simply plug it in, boot to kickstart 56, download and install the latest OS and then go on my way? 

I've read about WinMFS and InstantCake but I have no data that I need to retrieve nor do I care if the unit has to be factory reset. I simply want to plug in the drive, get the OS on there and be done with it. Am I on the right track? If not, can you please point me in the proper direction? Thanks.


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## jmbach

tha_toadman said:


> Hopefully this one should be quick and painless. My question is that if I've purchased a 500GB WD AV-GP drive for my upgrade, can I simply plug it in, boot to kickstart 56, download and install the latest OS and then go on my way?


No. Nice thought though.



tha_toadman said:


> I've read about WinMFS and InstantCake but I have no data that I need to retrieve nor do I care if the unit has to be factory reset. I simply want to plug in the drive, get the OS on there and be done with it. Am I on the right track? If not, can you please point me in the proper direction? Thanks.


Start here or here for your search.


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## unitron

tha_toadman said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> Hopefully this one should be quick and painless. My question is that if I've purchased a 500GB WD AV-GP drive for my upgrade, can I simply plug it in, boot to kickstart 56, download and install the latest OS and then go on my way?
> 
> I've read about WinMFS and InstantCake but I have no data that I need to retrieve nor do I care if the unit has to be factory reset. I simply want to plug in the drive, get the OS on there and be done with it. Am I on the right track? If not, can you please point me in the proper direction? Thanks.


Did you already purchase the drive?

If not, get a WD20EURX from newegg or Amazon (directly from them, not some other company using their website).

3 year warranty, best GB/$ ratio for the HD.

I assume you mean you have a TCD652160?

Is there anything wrong with the original drive and are you sure that it's the drive and not the power supply not being able to supply enough current to run everything?

Do you have a PC running Windows XP or newer where you can open it up and get to an unused SATA port or 2?

Once we establish whether it'll do you any good, I'll tell you where to download a Series 3 image for whichever S3 model you have, and how to get it on the new drive.

I'll also tell you how to run the WD diagnostic on the new drive before you put it in service.


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## tha_toadman

Hey unitron,

To answer your questions:



unitron said:


> Did you already purchase the drive?


Yes I did. I appreciate the suggestion but I didn't want to wrap up much cash into this.



> I assume you mean you have a TCD652160?


Yes, that is the model.



> Is there anything wrong with the original drive and are you sure that it's the drive and not the power supply not being able to supply enough current to run everything?


Yes. I called Tech Support to find the kickstart code (54) for SMART testing of which my unit had a couple of "Failed 7" messages. I noticed yesterday that the drive has a faint clicking too so it's shot. A scan of the drive reported 6+ areas with bad sectors so the new one is on order. I don't know what I can do to test the PS. Since you've asked this, I take it the PS's start to fail over time.



> Do you have a PC running Windows XP or newer where you can open it up and get to an unused SATA port or 2?


Yes.



> Once we establish whether it'll do you any good, I'll tell you where to download a Series 3 image for whichever S3 model you have, and how to get it on the new drive.
> 
> I'll also tell you how to run the WD diagnostic on the new drive before you put it in service.


Ok, thanks. I assume this is for either laying down 0's to the platters or else we're checking for the IntelliPark feature to be disabled, correct?


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## tha_toadman

Hey unitron,

I figured out what to do. I did use WinMFS and found a copy of the .tbk file I needed. You mentioned a link so I googled it and found the URL. I then ran the program, made the swap 256 since I was upgrading and performed the restore. I then mounted the drive in the unit, plugged the unit it in and it booted just fine (but really slow, as expected).

I noticed two things. One was I used an 11.0k image and I know the unit was on 11.0m before I performed the upgrade. The other is that after my first boot, the system gave me some 'system problem detected' error and insisted I reboot. After reboot, the message was gone and I had Live TV.


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## ggieseke

It will update itself back up to 11.0m, but the system error was almost certainly error 51. Until you run Clear & Delete Everything to "marry" the drive to the motherboard the Media Access Key will show all zeros and you won't be able to record anything.


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## tha_toadman

Thanks ggieseke for the info. I did what you suggested and now I have that Media Access Key populated. It was previously all zeros but then clearing of the drive said it would take up to an hour to complete. I checked it afterwards and it looks like its ready for service. It also managed to auto-update itself to 11.0m so I'm all set.

Thanks guys!


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## tivoROCKSme

All, years ago right after I bought my new Tivo HD, I bought and installed a WD 1TB HD. I'm pretty sure it's failing because my TIVO is now starting to reboot frequently after going to a pixel-lated screen. Seems to be getting more frequent. I've got over 7 years on this drive so that's good. Anyway, I need advise on which new SATA 2TB drive to purchase, and where to find the step by step instructions for copying this data from old drive to new drive. Many thanks


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## unitron

tivoROCKSme said:


> All, years ago right after I bought my new Tivo HD, I bought and installed a WD 1TB HD. I'm pretty sure it's failing because my TIVO is now starting to reboot frequently after going to a pixel-lated screen. Seems to be getting more frequent. I've got over 7 years on this drive so that's good. Anyway, I need advise on which new SATA 2TB drive to purchase, and where to find the step by step instructions for copying this data from old drive to new drive. Many thanks


Get a WD20EURX from like newegg or Amazon (but not from other companies using their websites--watch out for phrases like "partner", "marketplace", etc.)

Should be under $100.

More info later.


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## unitron

tivoROCKSme said:


> All, years ago right after I bought my new Tivo HD, I bought and installed a WD 1TB HD. I'm pretty sure it's failing because my TIVO is now starting to reboot frequently after going to a pixel-lated screen. Seems to be getting more frequent. I've got over 7 years on this drive so that's good. Anyway, I need advise on which new SATA 2TB drive to purchase, and where to find the step by step instructions for copying this data from old drive to new drive. Many thanks


Please tell me you mean you replaced the internal 160GB drive with that 1TB and not that you mean you added the 1TB version of the TiVo-approved external WD eSATA drive.

When one gets a new (or new to them) hard drive, one should hook it to a PC and run the drive manufacturer's own diagnostic software long test before putting it into service, preferably from a boot CD.

Go here

https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

and read up about the Ultimate Boot CD

and then go here

https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

go down to where it says Mirror Sites, find one that looks near you (relatively speaking) and on the left where it says ISO click on the icon (that's an old, like Windows 3.0 era, depiction of a hard drive) to download the image file (which has a .iso extension).

Then you burn that to cd-r "as an image" (that way the right stuff is on the cd in the right place for it to be bootable)

You should be able to figure out how to get to the WD diagnostic program by reading the UBCD overview page.

As for copying the old drive to the new one, you can try doing it with the WinMFS program that runs on Windows XP SP3 or newer versions of Windows.

You can read about it here

http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs

and then click this

http://mfslive.org/forums/download/file.php?id=86

to actually download the .zip file that contains

winmfs.exe

If WinMFS copies the 1TB to the 2TB successfully, it'll tell you that you have extra space and ask if you want to expand into that space.

Tell it no.

(just take my word for it)

Then select the 2TB (previously you would have selected the 1TB since that was the source for the copy) and run

mfsinfo

to make sure everything looks okay.

The partition map should show a big Apple Free partition on the end.

Exit out of that and run

mfsadd

to expand your 3rd MFS Media partition into that extra space.

If WinMFS runs into trouble trying to make the copy, then I'll have to try to walk you through getting to a Linux command line with the UBCD and running

ddrescue.


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## tivoROCKSme

Thank you very much. You are correct that I replaced the original drive with a 1 TB internal drive around 7 years ago. I just ordered a 1TB WD replacement drive WD10EZRX it should arrive tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll try your instructions and see how it goes. Thanks VERY much!


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## tivoROCKSme

My Winmfs Beta Build 9.3f program doesn't show either of the 2 drives (one old Tivo drive and one new Tivo drive) 
It also doesn't have a "Tools" option across the top toolbar. Windows does see the 2 drives in disk management as unformatted. Do I need to initialize the drives in Windows? 
in Winmfs, when I choose "File" then "Select Drive" the dialog box shows up but there is no drive information for either drive A or B
Help!
I'm using a computer with Windows 7


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## jmbach

Make sure you right click on WinMFS and run as administrator.


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## tivoROCKSme

Run as Admin took care of the issue of the drives not showing up.
Thanks - 
Copy in progress. ETA 6 hours 15 min


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## tivoROCKSme

Just want to say thanks Unitron. You helped me out. My old TIVO 1TB drive was too far gone to retrieve everything, but that wasn't the end of the world. I cancelled it after running about 24 hours and verifying the progress hadn't advanced. I then used the "original" Tivo drive that I pulled in 2008. I was thrilled that I was able to find it, even after moving 2 years ago! All is well, wishing I would have bought the 2 TB drive as you recommended, but oh well. New 1TB drive is working great. Hopefully I'll get another 7.5 years out of this TivoHD. Funny thing during this process, I did a Craigslist search for TivoHD and found a guy in my city offering a brand new one sealed in the box for $40. I bought it for the spare power supply and remote. Everything else is just bonus! 
Anyway, thanks again. Thanks for helping people like us who have done this before, but forgotten the process. Happy 4th of July!


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## unitron

tivoROCKSme said:


> Just want to say thanks Unitron. You helped me out. My old TIVO 1TB drive was too far gone to retrieve everything, but that wasn't the end of the world. I cancelled it after running about 24 hours and verifying the progress hadn't advanced. I then used the "original" Tivo drive that I pulled in 2008. I was thrilled that I was able to find it, even after moving 2 years ago! All is well, wishing I would have bought the 2 TB drive as you recommended, but oh well. New 1TB drive is working great. Hopefully I'll get another 7.5 years out of this TivoHD. Funny thing during this process, I did a Craigslist search for TivoHD and found a guy in my city offering a brand new one sealed in the box for $40. I bought it for the spare power supply and remote. Everything else is just bonus!
> Anyway, thanks again. Thanks for helping people like us who have done this before, but forgotten the process. Happy 4th of July!


You can wait for a sale and then use WinMFS to copy that new 1TB to a 2TB, tell it no when it asks to expand, select the 2TB (the 1TB source would have been previously selected), check it with

mfsinfo

and then expand with

mfsadd

and it'll just incorporate that extra 1TB into the 3rd MFS Media partion that was added when a 3rd MFS pair was added when expanding the 1TB from the original 160GB image, so you won't have a problem with exceeding the 16 partition per drive limit.

Then you can use the 1TB as extra storage on a PC after formatting it for Windows or Linux or whatever OS you're running.


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## Parkers

It'd be nifty if you could plug it in and do a software update. I think TiVo should imply that in their new TiVos


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## JayBird

I have a TiVo HD that I upgraded when I first got it with dual 750 GB drives. It ran perfectly until a few years ago when it started reporting an error code (I forget the specifics now), which I tried to fix using one of the kickstart codes (don't recall which one), which ultimately rendered it unbootable. 

So at that point I simply started over, using WinMFS to recopy from my original drive, which I've kept safe all these years, and rebuilt the drive pair using the same two 750 GB drives. This again worked great until just recently, when I noticed that while one tuner was recording normally, the other one was just showing a black screen.

Thinking it was the &%$!! tuning adapter (the source of all issues 99.9% of the time), I first started by simply rebooting the TiVo, which (unless it's completely locked up) also reboots the tuning adapter. But never got past the initial "powering up" screen. Lot's of tests later with various combinations of power cycling with/without the tuning adapter connected, with/without the 2nd drive connected, etc., even trying several of the kickstart codes, never ever got past "powering up". Note that all of the kickstarts did nothing - it just hung at the "powering up" screen.

From all I've read, the highest probability point of failure is the primary hard drive. Seemed odd that it was working otherwise perfectly fine (albeit with only one tuner) and then died from simply rebooting, but who knows. The bottom line is that the TiVo HD is currently dead in the water.

At this point my thought is to buy one of the recommended 2TB drives and start all over again, recopying once more from my trusty old original using the latest WinMFS.

I noticed that the recommendation above is to say NO when it asks if you want to expand to the additional space, and instead run mfsadd to expand to the full size of the new drive. Why is that? I don't recall doing it that way the last two times, although I'll admit my memory of it is a bit fuzzy at this point. I think what I did was first copy the original to the new primary drive, and said YES to expand it during the copy, and then when that was done, I married the secondary drive to the primary drive. But I must admit, it's been a few years now, so who knows.

This time it will be simpler, as I'm forgoing having a secondary drive by switching to a 2 TB primary drive, which will actually result in more space than I had with the dual 750 GB drives, and have one less potential point of failure.

I guess my bottom line question is, what is the best steps to follow when copying from my original image to the 2 TB drive using the latest WinMFS?

- Jay


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## HerronScott

Jay,

Since you indicated it's not getting past powering up, I'd first look at the power supply where failed capacitors is a common occurrence with our aging S3 TiVo's.

Scott


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## unitron

JayBird said:


> I have a TiVo HD that I upgraded when I first got it with dual 750 GB drives. It ran perfectly until a few years ago when it started reporting an error code (I forget the specifics now), which I tried to fix using one of the kickstart codes (don't recall which one), which ultimately rendered it unbootable.
> 
> So at that point I simply started over, using WinMFS to recopy from my original drive, which I've kept safe all these years, and rebuilt the drive pair using the same two 750 GB drives. This again worked great until just recently, when I noticed that while one tuner was recording normally, the other one was just showing a black screen.
> 
> Thinking it was the &%$!! tuning adapter (the source of all issues 99.9% of the time), I first started by simply rebooting the TiVo, which (unless it's completely locked up) also reboots the tuning adapter. But never got past the initial "powering up" screen. Lot's of tests later with various combinations of power cycling with/without the tuning adapter connected, with/without the 2nd drive connected, etc., even trying several of the kickstart codes, never ever got past "powering up". Note that all of the kickstarts did nothing - it just hung at the "powering up" screen.
> 
> From all I've read, the highest probability point of failure is the primary hard drive. Seemed odd that it was working otherwise perfectly fine (albeit with only one tuner) and then died from simply rebooting, but who knows. The bottom line is that the TiVo HD is currently dead in the water.
> 
> At this point my thought is to buy one of the recommended 2TB drives and start all over again, recopying once more from my trusty old original using the latest WinMFS.
> 
> I noticed that the recommendation above is to say NO when it asks if you want to expand to the additional space, and instead run mfsadd to expand to the full size of the new drive. Why is that? I don't recall doing it that way the last two times, although I'll admit my memory of it is a bit fuzzy at this point. I think what I did was first copy the original to the new primary drive, and said YES to expand it during the copy, and then when that was done, I married the secondary drive to the primary drive. But I must admit, it's been a few years now, so who knows.
> 
> This time it will be simpler, as I'm forgoing having a secondary drive by switching to a 2 TB primary drive, which will actually result in more space than I had with the dual 750 GB drives, and have one less potential point of failure.
> 
> I guess my bottom line question is, what is the best steps to follow when copying from my original image to the 2 TB drive using the latest WinMFS?
> 
> - Jay


Did you have the second drive powered externally?

I can tell by the size that you somehow got around TiVo's very short approved model number list, which only contains 500s and 1TBs.

If the TiVo boots and you get the first "Welcome" screen, and it never moves on to the "Just a few more minutes" screen, then something is interfering with the motherboard and the drive being able to communicate properly.

Could be data cable developed a problem (very low probability, but not absolutely impossible), could be SATA port went bad (also low odds, but it could happen), could be failing drive (and in your case you have 2 candidates for that), which is more likely, it could be scrambled software on good drives, that's by no means unheard of, or could be failing power supply can't provide enough current to run the motherboard and one or both drives, so you don't get proper spin-up.

The odds of power supply problems with a Series 2 or Series 3 are pretty much "sooner or later, almost a sure thing".

Assuming you don't have a GigaByte brand motherboard and therefore don't need to take precautions against it putting a Host Protected Area on one of the hard drives, suggest you connect both 750s to a PC and run

mfsinfo

either from the MFS Live cd or inside WinMFS and see if the software on them and the partition maps are still in good shape.

(If you use the MFS Live cd, you'll need to run

pdisk -l

in addition to

mfsinfo

in order to see the partition map)

And you should run the drive manufacturer's own diagnostic software long test on both drives while they're connected to the PC as well.

As to why expanding as part of the copy or image restoration process sometimes doesn't work like it should, I don't know enough to be able to supply a reason--I only know that sometimes it doesn't work right.

Doing the expansion separately doesn't seem to have that problem, and it only adds a minute or two to the overall process, so that's why I recommend doing it that way.

I think WinMFS will be able to copy both drives to a single large enough drive and save all the recordings, but I've never actually done it.

I'm assuming your TiVo was working recently enough to have been updated to at least version 11.0h (since then there's been 11.0k and 11.0m) of the S3 software, which is needed to be able to handle a 2TB drive.

EDIT TO ADD:

As long as you have the thing open to mess with the hard drives, might as well re-cap the power supply board and be done with it.


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## JayBird

Ok, I ordered a new WD 2GB drive, and I got a TiVo HD 11.0m image that I want to restore to it.

I have WinMFS beta 9.3f, and when I go to do a restore, it's asking me for the swap size, with a default of 128 MB. Is the default value of 128 MB OK, or do I need a bigger swap for things to work correctly? I vaguely recall this being an issue in the past, but I don't recall what's an appropriate value to use.

It's not asking me at this point about expanding - which some have pointed out shouldn't be done as part of the restore process.

I guess I'm just looking for a little guidance here to make sure I'm doing this right the first time, as it's been years since the last time I did an upgrade.

Thanks!

- Jay


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## JayBird

I figured it out.


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## BillL

JayBird said:


> I figured it out.


What did you end up doing? My project is very similar to yours.


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## JayBird

I put in 1024 for the swap size, following what I read elsewhere in this forum.

When it finished the restore, I said no when it asked if I wanted to expand, and then ran mfsadd to do the expansion instead. It gives you a warning about creating a partition greater than 1GB, but as long as you have the latest image for the TiVo HD (11.0m), it's not a problem, so don't have it limit the partition to only 1GB (I think you therefore want to click 'No', but without it in front of me again, I don't recall the exact wording of the warning dialog).

Looking at mfsinfo, the partitioning all looked good. Now I just need to extract my TiVo HD from my equipment rack and do surgery. While I'm in there I'll do a visual inspection of the power supply capacitors, since they are apparently a common point of failure.


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## tivoROCKSme

So, the WD drive I bought in June is already failing. I didn't follow your instruction about scanning the new drive using the UBCD, but you can bet I'll be doing that this time. 
I see the WD20PURX is a little less expensive and in stock while the WD20EURX is currently out of stock. Any thoughts on using the purple drive?
Appreciate your input.


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## HerronScott

tivoROCKSme said:


> So, the WD drive I bought in June is already failing. I didn't follow your instruction about scanning the new drive using the UBCD, but you can bet I'll be doing that this time.
> I see the WD20PURX is a little less expensive and in stock while the WD20EURX is currently out of stock. Any thoughts on using the purple drive?
> Appreciate your input.


What are the symptoms and are you sure it's not the power supply (sudden restarts, hangs during boot)? Or have you tested the new drive and it fails?

The WD20PURX is not recommended. Also note that some people are having issues with the latest WD20EURX (reasons unknown so far).

Scott


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## tivoROCKSme

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it's rebooting and hanging on the restart. I didn't know that was a symptom of bad power supply. Luckily I have a spare. Please confirm that's what you think I'm dealing with.
Appreciate it


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## HerronScott

tivoROCKSme said:


> Thanks for the reply. Yes, it's rebooting and hanging on the restart. I didn't know that was a symptom of bad power supply. Luckily I have a spare. Please confirm that's what you think I'm dealing with.


It sounds like it and is a known issue with the S3 and HD models as they age. You can check for capacitors that are bulging on the top which although not definitive, is a good sign.

Scott


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## tivoROCKSme

HerronScott said:


> What are the symptoms and are you sure it's not the power supply (sudden restarts, hangs during boot)? Or have you tested the new drive and it fails?
> 
> The WD20PURX is not recommended. Also note that some people are having issues with the latest WD20EURX (reasons unknown so far).
> 
> Scott


Thanks. I'll be pursuing the power supply angle but now you've got me curious. In case I ever need a new hard drive, which one is recommended?


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## HerronScott

tivoROCKSme said:


> Thanks. I'll be pursuing the power supply angle but now you've got me curious. In case I ever need a new hard drive, which one is recommended?


Normally the most recommended drive is the WD20EURX which is in the AV-GP line that TiVo generally uses. However some users are having issues getting those to be recognized by PC's (XP) and some TiVo's so you might want to hold of on buying one until someone figures out what's going on there. I think the second recommendation is usually the WD20EFRX which is WD's Red NAS line.

Scott


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## jmbach

I had a similar problem with Seagate AV drives at one time because someone was selling a lot of drives that had a firmware modification for a particular DVR. Had to find a version of the drive with an unmodified firmware.


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## unitron

HerronScott said:


> It sounds like it and is a known issue with the S3 and HD models as they age. You can check for capacitors that are bulging on the top which although not definitive, is a good sign.
> 
> Scott


A bulge on top of any of the caps is definitive for you need to replace that cap and should do the rest while you're at it, but a lack of bulge on any of them is not definitive for the power supply not having any problems.

If you see a bulge you don't need a Voltmeter to know that you have a problem, but if you don't see a bulge, meter readings might reveal that you have a problem despite the lack of visual evidence.

If it's an S2 or S3 platform power supply, the odds are in favor of "if you don't have a problem with it yet, you probably will before too long".


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## HerronScott

unitron said:


> but a lack of bulge on any of them is not definitive for the power supply not having any problems.


That's what I was really trying to indicate. Thanks for clarifying. 

Scott


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## HerronScott

unitron said:


> A bulge on top of any of the caps is definitive for you need to replace that cap and should do the rest while you're at it, but a lack of bulge on any of them is not definitive for the power supply not having any problems.


I would also note that it can take a while for bulging capacitor to cause issues depending on which one(s) are bulging. One of my S3 OLED's had bulging capacitors for 2 1/2 years before I finally got around to pre-emptively replacing them. Sometimes it's hard to find downtime when it's still working (plus I already had the parts on hand from when my first one failed outright). 

Scott


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## tvmaster2

unitron said:


> Get a WD20EURX from like newegg or Amazon (but not from other companies using their websites--watch out for phrases like "partner", "marketplace", etc.)
> 
> Should be under $100.
> 
> More info later.


I am looking at a replacement drive for a Tivo HD as well.
1 TB is fine for this DVR, so this would be acceptable?

http://www.amazon.com/WD-Bulk-WD10E...-3&keywords=wd+av&refinements=p_85:2470955011

The original WD green drive, WD1600AVVS is no longer available of course. Since you recommended the WD20EURX, I assume it wouldn't tax the power supply (any EURX?).

Also, any thoughts on the EURS series, or EFRX Red drives?

thanks


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## tivoROCKSme

Well, I'm back at it again. I've put in a brand new power supply in my TivoHD, still getting random "Powering Up" - Bought a new WD20EURX and ran the long test from Ultimate Boot CD - shows 100% great. I'm running WinMFS 9.3 and it can't see or recognize the drive, however it does see my 1TB TivoHD drive. I've upgraded the Dell Optiplex 980 bios firmware to the latest version, as I noticed that it recognizes the WD20EURX but does not know it's capacity in BIOS. Windows 7 doesn't seem to see it either. Not sure what's going on but would love some advise.


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## ggieseke

tivoROCKSme said:


> Well, I'm back at it again. I've put in a brand new power supply in my TivoHD, still getting random "Powering Up" - Bought a new WD20EURX and ran the long test from Ultimate Boot CD - shows 100% great. I'm running WinMFS 9.3 and it can't see or recognize the drive, however it does see my 1TB TivoHD drive. I've upgraded the Dell Optiplex 980 bios firmware to the latest version, as I noticed that it recognizes the WD20EURX but does not know it's capacity in BIOS. Windows 7 doesn't seem to see it either. Not sure what's going on but would love some advise.


Check out this thread on PUIS (Power Up In Standby).

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=536101


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