# Blank screen after Powering up message



## killme (May 9, 2004)

Model: TCD2040

I see the Welcome "Powering up" message and a minute later I see the amber light flash once and then I get a blank screen.

The hours before this happened my TiVo was constantly pausing, stuttering, pixelating, etc. The background animation was pausing also. I thought the hard drives were dying so I transferred as much as I could to my second TiVo. I had to reboot the TiVo a couple times because the video would go out or it would freeze.

I use to be able to get back to the TiVo screen even though it was slow, but now I can't. I was able to backup the "A" and "B" drives to a file and then restore the file to a new "A" and "B" drive. I am still getting the blank screen after powering up with the new drives.

I put in my original 80GB drive and it worked just fine. I switched the ribbon cable and took off the Powertrip, but it didn't help.

I assume that the image I pulled from the TiVo drives was bad and I'll have to get an earlier one, which I plan to do within the next few hours. Any other ideas or suggestions?


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I plugged in "A" drive (250GB) as Master and "B" drive (300GB) as Slave. I then took my original 80GB image and restored it to /dev/hdb. I ran msinfo and the results are as expected with no errors.

I then restored the same image to /dev/hda and ran msinfo and get the following:
Second MFS Drive Needed: No such file or directory
Second MFS Drive Needed2: Illegal seek
Second MFS Drive Needed: No such file or directory
Second MFS Drive Needed3: Illegal seek
mfs_load_volumeheader: Total sectors(486977536) mismatch with volume header (1073042432)
mfs_load_volume_header: Loading anyway.
mfs_load_zone_map: Primary zone map corrupt, loading backup.
mfs_load_zone_map: Secondary zone map corrupt, giving up.
mfs_load_zone_map: Zone map checksum error!

I used the following command on both drives:
mfsrestore -s 200 -xbzpi /mnt/dos/tivo1.bak /dev/hdX (where X is "a" or "b")

I didn't receive any errors during mfsrestore.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I tried restoring from other images I made after the original, but none of those work. Not even the original from my second tivo. mfsinfo gives me the "volume header corrupt" message. I guess it's safe to delete those images. Seems odd that only one of the 4 images would work.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I just stuck the 300GB drive in my TiVo and it's working. I'll probably just stay with this one drive for now as I don't want to miss any of the shows I have set to record this week.

I'll run WD Diagnostics on the 250GB drive. I ran it when I first got the drive and it didn't find any problems.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

killme said:


> ...Second MFS Drive Needed: No such file or directory....


This indicates that the restore failed. mfsinfo is still seeing the 2 250GB drives as a set, and since I assume you issued "mfsinfo /dev/hda" it failed to see the expected B drive.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I don't see why mfsrestore worked for the 300GB drive, but not the 250GB drive.

Anyway. I ran a scan on the 250GB drive and it detected no errors. Also, I just read on here that I can't have a 300GB "B" drive, which is what I was doing in the beginning. That's probably why it didn't work the first time.

I read that mfsrestore is suppose to delete what is currently on the drive, but maybe it's not doing that for for this particular drive. How do I format or wipe the drive clean so it has nothing on it? Is there a linux command to do this?


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## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

Not sure why you were restoring to both drives. Restore to new A drive from good image and test in TiVo to make sure everything is working - sounds like you have done this with a 300GB drive (your original post only mentioned two 250GB drives which confuses me). Then attach both new A and new B to computer and use mfsadd command to marry second drive to first per hinsdale. I assume you are paying attention to the larger swap file needed and running tpip after increasing the swap size.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

That was a typo. The "B" drive was 300GB. I restored my original image to both the 300GB and the 250GB so that both drives were "A" drives. However, mfsinfo gave the aformentioned errors on the 250GB, but it worked on the 300GB. That's what I can't figure out.


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## Wood in Virginia (Feb 23, 2006)

"Welcome.Powering Up" issue also. My Sony SAT-T60 , that I hacked in Feb 2004 (when warranty was up-Dec 2003) to a 120GB Tivo is SUDDENLY not working. I suspect foul play by Directv ! I reinstalled my old HD & it doesn't work either except I get B/W screen with rotating info on it fuzzy, out of focus & machine did a Software upload for 2 hours & still B/W screen with the Original HD . Now I know it isn't a power supply issue but must be something wrong with the boot drive of my hacked A drive 120GB WD drive. (I only had 1 drive in machine)
I called Directv they are more than happy to send me a 'new refurb Tivo' if I pay them 14.95 for shipping, I will get a Tivo with 2 tuners(just like the SAT-60 model) & a 90 day warranty FREE from them. I suspect they "Directv" had something to do with my old Tivo screwing up. It had been working fine Feb 2004-Feb 2006 with new 120 GB HD I bought off Ebay. [ My Sat-60 was one of the last new ones manufactured got it from Good Guys in California it was made in Mexico Nov 2002. ] Wonder if these new Tivo's supplied by Directv are going to FORCE ME to watch their commercials or not allow me to fast forward through commercials on playback? I have a sneaky suspicion that something is up....Directv being too good about replacement.. Will keep you posted.


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## killme (May 9, 2004)

I booted mfstools again and the first thing I did was run mfsinfo on my 250GB drive. Surprisingly, it worked just fine.

I had two 40GB DirecTivo drives also attached and backed up each one to a file on my 5GB FAT32 drive. I then ran mfsrestore from each file onto the 250GB drive and mfsinfo still reported that everything was good.

I then ran mfsrestore from the messed up copy I had made of the two 160GB drives (the ones that were in my TiVo before I put the 300GB in there) and put it on the 250GB drive. As expected mfsinfo reports header problems. No biggie.

I then ran mfsrestore from both DirectTivo backup files to the 250GB and I was still getting the errors.

So would it be safe to assume that because of the corrupted image I put on the 250GB mfsrestore was not actually overwriting the disk with the new image? And I can only assume that by booting into Windows XP with the 250GB drive attached it somehow fixed it so that mfsinfo was reporting the image as good again. It's all very weird.


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