# Crashed Tivo 540



## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

This isn't meant to be a double post, but this post has some different questions in it:


Ok, my Tivo 540 unit has been working fine and we had a power outage this morning and after the power came back on all the Tivo will do is show the Orange and Black screen saying Powering up.

I called Tivo support and they said to try unplugging it and plugging it back up. I did that and still the same. She said that was basically it...the unit must be bad. Any other suggestions?

This is an upgraded unit. I put a 200 gig hd in it when I got it over a year ago. If the unit is bad, is there anyway to recover the shows? I have a ton of childrens programs that I had recorded for our kids.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Check the Power Supply and Hard Drive. If you still have the original hard drive try it. 

Unplug any USB device.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

And to answer your question...if the unit cannot be repaired, no, there's no way to recover the shows as they are encrypted and that encryption is tied to the crypto chip on the motherboard. A new Tivo would have a different serial # on the crypto chip and would therefore be unable to play the videos.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

I still have the original hd...I can put it back in there.  How do I check the power supply? i.e. when I plug it in the fan on the box is running and I'm getting the Orange and Black splash screen with the Powering Up on it...so it's getting some power.

Is there anyway to test the hd or run any kind of disk tools on it to check it or stuff like that? I know on Windows based pc's sometimes if they get shut down like that it screws up stuff on the hd, so didn't know if there were any kind of defrag tools or other tools to run on the hd to test/fix it.

I had several of their shows tranfered to my pc via the Tivo to Go, so worse case, I guess they can watch them on there if they had to. But I had a bunch more on there that were not transferred.


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## donchanger (Sep 20, 2005)

The exact same thing happened to me two weeks ago. Unit upgraded to 160GB about 8 months ago, working perfectly ever since, power failure, then couldn't get past "Powering Up..." In fact, my main concern, like yours, was many hours of movies and shows for my kids (including gads of holiday specials that I meant to transfer off but it takes so darn long....)

In my case (and I suspect in yours), it was the hard drive. I tried removing the drive and copying to a new one of the same size using the same tools as when I first installed the bigger one (I used Hinsdale's directions and the small boot CD linked there), choosing the "slow" option to retain recordings. It chugged and seemed to work for a while and then it aborted with a disk error. I tried the more sophisticated "dd_rescue" method which also ran along great until about the 39GB mark, where it reported a number of errors, after which it kept going but at a much slower rate. 28 hours later, I gave up, started dd_rescue with some different options in an attempt to speed things up, and 28 hours (and about a total of just 10MB of data read errors), it was done. I re-installed and the Tivo got a little further (I got the GSOD a few times followed by "planned" reboots) but the thing never did finish loading. I finally gave up, installed a new drive by copying off the original 40GB drive (which I had thankfully saved), and accepted the fact that the recordings are lost. Afterwards, I also used Seagate's diagnostic tools (my fried drive was a Seagate) and it did in fact report errors.

I add all this detail because I suspect (but can't know) that if you try the same things, you'll have the same outcome. Unfortunately.

I have read that SpinRite may have more success getting the data off the drive but I have not tried that. I'm about to send my drive back to Seagate for an in-warranty replacement.

I wonder whether the Tivo power-supply (which does not look like an especially well designed one to this former EE) is not keeping the hard disk happy. Or, perhaps power failures during just the wrong moment of disk writing are just as bad to Tivo as to a Windows box? I don't know.

Good luck. If you learn anything else that is helpful, I hope you will post it.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Try the old hd if that works you know it is the drive then can attempt recovery or replacement. The Power Supply should be checked by someone who knows there way around live electronic circuits there is voltages at dangerous levels in there any way you have a display so the power supply is least likely of the two.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

donchanger said:


> I have read that SpinRite may have more success getting the data off the drive but I have not tried that.


I have not tried SpinRite on a Tivo drive specifically, but I can say with assurance that there is no better tool out there for disk recovery (short of the stuff that the pros use). I have seen it bring utterly unusable drives back to life -- and I've even seen them go on living for a year or more.

Not a free tool. But not hideously expensive, and if it saves data for you one time, it will pay for itself.


> I wonder whether the Tivo power-supply (which does not look like an especially well designed one to this former EE) is not keeping the hard disk happy. Or, perhaps power failures during just the wrong moment of disk writing are just as bad to Tivo as to a Windows box? I don't know.


Possibly...but then again, remember that hard drives come in two flavors: dying and dead.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Well, I assume it's the hd as well. I figure the power on off thing got it. If it was the electronics side of the Tivo box, then I don't think it would be showing the start up screen.

Thanks for the help!


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

darkcyber said:


> Well, I assume it's the hd as well. I figure the power on off thing got it. If it was the electronics side of the Tivo box, then I don't think it would be showing the start up screen.


Not necessarily -- the startup screen gets splashed almost immediately.

If you can pull the drive and put it in a PC, you might mount partition 9 and take a look at the kernel log file.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Ok, since we're getting deeper here...how will I mount partition 9 and look at that file?


Also, since it's been about a year and half ago when I upgraded this unit from a 40 gig hd to a 200 gig hd, I've forgotten the steps for doing this again. I mean I'm putting my original 40 gig hd back in and if it works I'm going to get a replacement 200 gig to go back in there. Where are the instructions for doing this? I've still got my cd's that I upgraded it with...tools may have changed since then though.

Or there may be an easier way now than from back then.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Is it ok to put this hd into a Windows XP based system and try Spinrite or does it have to been done either with a DOS or Linux boot disk?


UPDATE: It did turn out to be the hd. I put the original back in the Tivo and it's working fine. Now to see if I can fix the 200 gig or not.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

SpinRite runs form DOS when you run SpinRite in XP the only option you have is which bootable media you want to create floppy or CD.

*NEVER BOOT XP with a TiVo configured drive connected* XP writes a signature corrupting the TiVo boot area.

If your MFSTools CD is LBA48 your ok, otherwise download the new one see the stickys at the top of the Underground Playground > TiVo Upgrade Center forum

You could try dd_rescue this binary copies a failing drive to a new drive sometimes this works depending if dd_rescue can get a good read or where the corruption.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

darkcyber said:


> Is it ok to put this hd into a Windows XP based system and try Spinrite or does it have to been done either with a DOS or Linux boot disk?


As homeuser mentions, never boot XP with a Tivo drive attached.

Spinrite comes with an ISO (or can create an ISO) that gives you a bootable CD. Use that and you should be fine.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Ok, I thought I remember about never connecting a Tivo drive to a Windows pc, but just checking.

So, does Spinrite repair data issues and problems on hd's? 

I ran Data Lifeguard tools on my 200 gig and it found problems and says it fixed them. Now to the data part.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Yes SpinRite does attempt to recovery of bad sectors using a couple of methods see the video SpinRite 6.0: With TechTV's Leo Laporte!

I run SpinRite on all my drives especially new drives before I use them.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Well, I ran Spinrite 6 and it didn't find any problems. Hmmmm! Don't know. Data Lifeguard Tools may have fixed whatever was causing the issue. But I put the hd back into my Tivo and still it only comes up to the Splash screen saying powering up and nothing beyond that.

Any additional suggestions on how could be done to bring the Tivo part back up here, with the recorded shows that were on the hd?

Since Spinrite didn't find any issues...it must be something in the software part now. Anyway to fix that...short of just copying my old 40 gig hd back onto it?


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

HomeUser said:


> Yes SpinRite does attempt to recovery of bad sectors using a couple of methods see the video SpinRite 6.0: With TechTV's Leo Laporte!
> 
> I run SpinRite on all my drives especially new drives before I use them.


Spinrite 6 has 5 different levels...Examine the surfaces, recover unreadable data...etc. I can't find any info on grc's website about the different level settings. Is level 1 like the lightest scan and level 5 like the most intense? As far as scanning and fixing/recovering stuff?


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

darkcyber said:


> Spinrite 6 has 5 different levels...Examine the surfaces, recover unreadable data...etc. I can't find any info on grc's website about the different level settings. Is level 1 like the lightest scan and level 5 like the most intense? As far as scanning and fixing/recovering stuff?


Yep, that's it exactly. Run it at 5, assuming you are the patient sort.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

darkcyber said:


> Spinrite 6 has 5 different levels...Examine the surfaces, recover unreadable data...etc. I can't find any info on grc's website about the different level settings. Is level 1 like the lightest scan and level 5 like the most intense? As far as scanning and fixing/recovering stuff?


Yes 
Level 1 is just scans and reports errors 
Level 2 scans for errors and attempts to recover them. 
Level 3 re-writes every sector several times 
Level 4 moves the data writes special patterns attempting to force errors then restores the data 
Level 5 does 4 even on areas all-ready marked bad. 
Each level builds on the previous levels.

Level 2 is what you want however Data Lifeguard Tools does not fix errors just logically maps the bad sector with an empty sector from a special reserved area.

As you still cannot boot beyond powering up suggest you try maketivobootable and before you give up on the drive check out this message by Windracer


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Thanks for the suggestions. I did run Spinrite at level 5, overnight, and it still found nothing.

When I ran Data Lifeguard Tools on the quick test it gave me error 3. Then it said to run it on the extended test to repair that. I ran it on the extended test and it said error 0223, but said all had been repaired. I ran Data Lifeguard Tools again and it found no errors. I then ran Spinrite, on data recovery first, and didn't find or fix anything. Then on level 5, still nothing.

What I would like to do is get that 200 gig hd working again, intact, with all the shows. If not and I had to copy the 404 gig hd back onto it, is there anyway to copy shows from my pc back onto my Tivo with Tivo ToGo? Because alot of those shows I did have transferred to my pc with Tivo ToGo.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Yes, you can restore the recordings from the PC's TiVo Desktop. At the bottom of now playing you should find the computers on your local network that have TiVo desktop running. If you do see the PC check that it's firewall settings allows the TiVo software full access to the network. 

Some more ramblings on about the drive issue. 
Check that SpinRite is able to see the entire drive SpinRite depends on the computer BIOS for LBA48 access. If there were no errors running SpinRite at level 5 the drive is probably ok. 

If you are still not getting past the Orange Welcome Powering up screen (I only see a gray one) 
There still could be a Power Supply issue new drives tend to consume more power especially at power-up. When the drive is in the TiVo verify that the drive spins up and listen for head movement? 

The boot up sequence on my 240 is 
Gray - Welcome Powering UP 
Orange - Almost There, Just a few minutes more. 
TiVo Guy Toon.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Great news on copying those shows back from my pc. Worst case, if I can't get the 200 gig to work, I can just copy the 40 gig back to it and then spend weeks transferring the shows back...but at least I can get them back.

I watched the video on Spinrite and in there theirs shows hd's like DOS Drive, Linux Drive...etc. All Spinrite would show on mine was just something like drive 1, empty. Something like that.

The original 40 gig drive I assume is just a 5400 rpm drive, the 200 gig is a 7200 rpm...probably does require more power.

Mine does this:

Orange/Black - Welcome Powering UP
Orange/Black - Almost There, Just a few minutes more.
TiVo Guy Toon.

Thanks!


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

SpinRite just sees the TiVo drive as one big empty drive. Check that drive 1 is reported as 200G. I have an older PC the BIOS does not support LBA48 as a result SpinRite will only access the lower 137Gib of a hard disk this might explain why Data Lifeguard found some errors that SpinRite did not. I would not expect an error in this area of the disk would cause a booting problem 


I was thinking the first screen "Welcome Powering UP" is from the BIOS you'd get it without a hard drive. Not getting to the second screen might be a clue. Have you tried makeTiVobootable yet.


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## darkcyber (Mar 17, 2005)

Well, I just ran PTVupgrade LBA48 CD v4.04 and copied my original 40 gig hd back onto my 200 gig hd and all it well now. It's back up and running but when I go to System Information and check, the Tivo is showing Recording time as 40 hours. So, what happened...anyone have a clue?

I used this command line to copy the old 40 gig to the new 200 gig hd.

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k


After doing some more reading and research, it looks like I should have done this:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda

Can someone verify that this is the way to make a copy of a single hd upgrade, replacing the old one with a new larger one? And by using the above command it will copy all existing data on the old hd plus expand the new one up the the137 gig+ size.

Thanks!


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

What dd did is just make a binary copy of the 40G hd. If it is not too late start over with your mfsbackup | restore command you want a larger swap (-s 127) then the default swap that is on the 40g.

Your command line looks good mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda if the original 40G is Primary on the second IDE channel and the 200G is primary first IDE channel.

Any way this proves that the power supply is not the problem.


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## JJChandler (Sep 7, 2004)

Perhaps I can get some help with a similar problem.

I upgraded my HR10-250 with a 400GB Seagate Drive. I used Hinsdale and everything worked perfectly. I've been recording for the last 10 days and everything has been working fine. The HR10-250 is on a UPS so it doesn't lose power. Last night I went home and the unit is stuck on "Welcome, Powering up..." I tried pulling the plug twice and then I opened up the unit to check that the IDE and Power cable were tight (and they were). Same result. I put the old 250GB Drive back in and the unit powers up normally.

I also noticed that when the unit was stuck on "powering up" there would be a little activity where the record light would come on. Then the screen would blink and the powering up screen would be back and the record light would go out. The record light coming on seemed to have a fixed period of time of a minute or so...

Based on what I read in this thread I should try spinrite. It sounds like darkcyber ultimately had to go back to restore his back up copy. Would this new Seagate drive fail after only 10 days of use? I didn't check the drive for errors before I started.

Any other ideas?


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