# TivoHD with 500G MyDVR expander started freezing and rebooting recently



## blakehew (May 24, 2007)

What i have:

TivoHD, no modifications
WesternDigital 500GB MyDVR Expander
Comcast Cable cards

This setup has been running flawlessly for over a year. Just recently It has started to randomly freeze and reboot during playback of recorded shows. This has happened at least 10-15 times over the past 2-3 weeks. What will happens is the picture will just freeze up and then after about a minute or two, the box will reboot. After it reboots if i go play the same show and 30 second skip over the place where it froze, it will then continue on playing just fine. Any Ideas. This is starting to become very annoying. It probably wouldn't annoy me as much if the tivo didn't take FOREVER to boot.

-Thanks


----------



## GadgetVirtuoso (Sep 27, 2001)

Mine hasn't rebooted but it has frozen a number of times since adding the external drive. I've been meaning to call TiVo about it but haven't felt up to playing that game.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Unfortunately, it sounds like your 500GB My DVR Expander is going bad.

Many on this forum have reported My DVR Expander failures after 12-16 months.


----------



## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

Same exact thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I tried to remove the DVR expander and I get caught in a loop where it tells me to press clear and then thumbs down 3 times and enter to remove it but it reboots to the same screen. Will try to upgrade it to a 1 Tb next week but may have to use Instant cake.


----------



## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

What is the warranty on the DVR Expander drives? I stopped purchasing any hard drives that have less than a 3-year warrranty.

Well, that's not quite true. I did buy a 400GB WD My Book USB expansion drive for my wife a few years ago on an after-Thansgiving Day special. (Unfortunately, it died after about 20 months.)

My thought is that if the company won't stand behind their drives for more than a year, you shouldn't place any higher expectations on the drive yourself. (That doesn't help your current predicament, but it could help for the future.)


----------



## Viscott (Apr 18, 2009)

Same thing happened to me  Same setup just with TWC Cable Cards. I replaced my TiVo drive with a Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS and divorced the eSATA drive.

The only downside was that I could not pull off my shows from the S3 using TiVo desktop. System kept on crashing.

Followed upgrade FAQ instructions and all went perfectly!

V. Internal Drive Upgrades 
Option b. TiVo Internal Upgrade Instructions: Preserves Settings and Recordings

Perfection! S3 has been running since without ANY problems! 


--Jon


----------



## microbubba (Dec 31, 2006)

Viscott said:


> Same thing happened to me  Same setup just with TWC Cable Cards. I replaced my TiVo drive with a Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS and divorced the eSATA drive.
> 
> The only downside was that I could not pull off my shows from the S3 using TiVo desktop. System kept on crashing.
> 
> ...


Ditto on all of that. (Except Cox and not crashing)

I'm still not willing to believe the DVR Expander was faulty as much as the _combination_ of early S3, DVR Expander, and recent software release.

After the divorce and prior to the upgrade to 1TB, the S3 perfromed flawlessly, so _something_ about removing the Expander made it much happier.

Anyway, fewer pieces + *more* storage = :up:


----------



## RustySTL (Feb 27, 2007)

I had similar problems after a Tivo update, removed the expander and had no problems since.

I then plugged the expander into a second TiVo HD that I have and haven't had any problems...go figure.

So it wasn't a problem with the DVR Expander.

There is a thread "Partial recording -- total head-scratcher" that discussed a similar issue.


----------



## donsig (Apr 20, 2003)

I too have the WesternDigital 500GB MyDVR Expander hooked up to the my HDTiVo (no cablecards). Knock on wood I have not had the lock-up problems yet. 

However, I have gone through two mybook series disks under warranty with my computer to the point that I have stopped buying them. The computer would frequently freeze with mybook connected. I still have one that I use that used to exhibit freezing problems. On advice from a friend I pointed an external fan at the mybook and the problems went away. It seems they can suffer from overheat problems. I don't keep any critical data on that drive.

You could give an external fan a try to see if it brings you back in service temporarily until you come up with a more permanent fix as suggested above. 

Jeff


----------



## micgadget (May 15, 2009)

blakehew,
I have the same exact problem as you. Same setup, working flawlessly since Thanksgiving 2007 and now what the frack!!!!
I can't seem to figure out what causes it to freeze. Also sometimes it reboots itself and resets no problem, but this morning it just hung after the reboot and I had to reboot it via power strip.
It's got to be software. Way to many people just living with it. Everyone wants to say it's the hardware, but if you are experiencing the EXACT same thing as me with the exact same setup...it's got to be the SOFTWARE!!! ugh!!! Come on Tivo!!! At least let us know we're not crazy and you are aware of the problem!!!


----------



## joelkfla (Feb 9, 2002)

Same set-up - early S3 with 500 GB My DVR Exp'r.

Mine kept getting worse. Ran KS 54 to check for errors on in the internal drive and found none. Ran KS 54 on external drive, and it would not run -- TiVo rebooted anywhere from a few seconds to about a minute into the test.
Eventually, TiVo froze, rebooted itself and stopped recognizing the external drive completely, giving me the screen saying to reattach the drive or divorce it.

I unplugged the drive and am running with original storage only now. I have had a couple of glitches since doing that a week ago - one cablecard (or tuner) stopped working until I rebooted, and this morning it seemed like TiVo stopped recognizing the Tuning Adaptor until a reboot. (Local broadcast stations reverted to the analog version, and the Tuning Adaptor Diagnostics screen said "Diagnostics not available.") Hopefully these are coincidences, not related to the apparent external disk failure. But I have had no freeze-ups and reboots since removing the drive.

I filed a claim with my credit card company under their extended warranty (18 months since purchase.) If I get a cash settlement, I haven't decided yet whether I'll replace the drive or do an internal drive upgrade.


----------



## Joe-user21 (Jan 11, 2007)

Hi - ok, after a year running fine, as of about May 7th or so, a week ago, I started having this EXACT SAME PROBLEM. I was having a different freeze problem prior (that I've posted in a different thread), but now it's doing this: during playback, video freezes, Tivo is unrespsonsive, and it reboots after a minute. I too am wondering if there isn't a SW problem since this problem kicked on on roughly the same day for a bunch of people. Bad driver, perhaps?

Of course, if the mean time to failure of these expanders is, like, exactly 12 months, that's a bummer too!

Whichever the cause, HW or SW, I've pretty much decided to switch to a 1 TB internal. This S3 has a sibling, bought the same time, that I immediately upgraded to a bigger internal drive. That S3 has been running fine (1 drive is better than 2 as someone mentioned earlier ;-) ). I did the storage differently as an experiment, and I think we've seen the result!

I have a couple HD shows I need to pull off if I can, and Tivo Desktop isn't a paragon of stability either (as someone mentioned).


----------



## pusher (Jul 23, 2001)

I posted in another thread...but I have the same setup. S3 + 500Gb my dvr + comcast 13mo old... My only difference in scenario was that when I divorced the expander my S3 was still rebooting and freezing on startup. I assumed it was an internal drive failure so I swapped for a 1Tb green drive and everything is back to normal except of course I lost all my content.

Swap the internal drive and see what happens.


----------



## acitrano (May 13, 2009)

Here's what stuns me - why not design the software so that it _tells you_ there's a problem with your external storage device, rather than just rebooting randomly like a broken robot from a bad 1960s movie? Now there's a radical notion!


----------



## hjonez (May 24, 2009)

Dear TC,

Yep. All I can say is "Me Too". All of a sudden, the thing can't go 10min without rebooting. (Not counting the 6 minutes to boot.) It happens at the same timecode of particular recordings every time. 

TiVo HD, 2 comcast cable cards, WD MyBook 500GB. 

Looks like I'll be disconnnecting my eSATA and putting a 1TB internal and losing all my content  It's not even legal to torrent my corrupted data even though I am I have given Comcast and TiVo ridiculous amounts of money over the past 5 years (


----------



## pestick (Jul 16, 2006)

Same thing happened to me bought the hard drive 500gig and just at the 12 month time had past the drive failed and lost everything planned failure by the company? to work just long enough to make it past warranty.


----------



## bshughes657 (Oct 19, 2006)

I'm having similar issues with the exact setup. about a week ago my series 3 started to freeze and then reboot. After playing around with it I have discovered that the issue is with playing back while the DVR is recording. If I have a buffer on the chanel, I can only go back about 3-4 minutes before it will freeze. If I'm lucky I can get it to play again. Sometimes I'm not so lucky. Yester day I wa rcording the hockey game. I started to watch it from the begining of the recording,it froze,re-booted and when it came back the entire recording was gone. Do you guys think this is the same problem with the external drive or something with the Tivo itself. I want to disconnect the external drive but there are recordings I don't want to lose and it works perfectly as long as the recording is done.

Bob


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

hjonez said:


> Dear TC,
> 
> Yep. All I can say is "Me Too". All of a sudden, the thing can't go 10min without rebooting. (Not counting the 6 minutes to boot.) It happens at the same timecode of particular recordings every time.
> 
> ...


MyBook isn't supported by TiVo. MyDVR Expander is.


----------



## flip123 (Feb 11, 2003)

Same thing started happening to me yesterday. I had two reboots yesterday and one today. I could go back to the same location in the show and it would reboot again.

I find very coincidental that there are so many who have had systems that have worked well for a long time and now have systems that all started to fail at the same time.

Phil


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

mine is acting out for the last 3-4 weeks. Tivo HD with Tivo 500Gb expander. 
It would freeze and then Tivo would do nothing then reboot.
Also it seems that sometimes the regular HD stream will have several small freezes. It can last for 2-3 minutes and then it recovers. I as well am trying my best to watch all unwatched shows to see if I can do a regular internal upgrade.

I as well do not buy that the expander would take a dump for so many users. I call BS on software upgrade problem.

cheers

Nick


----------



## DinoBambino (Nov 19, 2003)

I'm having the same issues with my TivoHD and 500GB MyDVR Expander. 

I did a Kickstart 57 and I guess it went fine (are you supposed to receive some sort of message?) I ran Kickstart 54 against the internal drive and those tests did not produce any errors. So, I decided to restart the Tivo this morning with the external dirve attached. It was stuck at the Welcome Powering Up screen for 20 minutes. I pulled the plug and also disconnected the external drive. The Tivo booted up and eventually dipalyed the "External storage is not connected" message. So I'm thinking that the MyDVR Expander is bad. 

I am goimg to file an extended warranty claim through AMEX. I'm thinking I might go the internal 1TB upgrade route.


----------



## deantivo (Dec 8, 2002)

I am having a similar issue with my TivoHD and 500GB MyDVR Expander, which is over 1-year old. In the last month, my TivoHD has rebooted itself about 10 times. I don't get a pause first, it just pops up with "Powering UP". Sometimes this happens when turning on the TV, so I suspected power or HDMI issues. But the last time I was just watching a recorded program and nothing was recording.

I have had these types of issues many months ago. After reading the forum, I changed from HDMI to component, but that didn't seem to help. Calling Tivo, they said it was probably my cable cards, which I didn't believe. But I changed them and the problem went away for a few months. Recently I redid the power and put the Tivo on a UPS, that seemed to help for a month. Now it's back again. Very strange and beyond annoying! I guess I will change the cable cards again, as that is relatively painless...

I sure hope we get to the bottom of all this. I love my Tivo, but...


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

deantivo said:


> I am having a similar issue with my TivoHD and 500GB MyDVR Expander, which is over 1-year old. In the last month, my TivoHD has rebooted itself about 10 times. I don't get a pause first, it just pops up with "Powering UP". Sometimes this happens when turning on the TV, so I suspected power or HDMI issues. But the last time I was just watching a recorded program and nothing was recording.
> 
> I have had these types of issues many months ago. After reading the forum, I changed from HDMI to component, but that didn't seem to help. Calling Tivo, they said it was probably my cable cards, which I didn't believe. But I changed them and the problem went away for a few months. Recently I redid the power and put the Tivo on a UPS, that seemed to help for a month. Now it's back again. Very strange and beyond annoying! I guess I will change the cable cards again, as that is relatively painless...
> 
> I sure hope we get to the bottom of all this. I love my Tivo, but...


With the price of the 500GB MyDVR Expander below $100, you might just get another, or, better yet, get the 1TB model. It can be had for about $170 believe.

EDIT: I see Best Buy no longer has the 500GB version (which I got from them for $95; they DO have the 1TB for $169, but it's backordered.


----------



## deantivo (Dec 8, 2002)

Bierboy said:


> With the price of the 500GB MyDVR Expander below $100, you might just get another, or, better yet, get the 1TB model. It can be had for about $170 believe.
> 
> EDIT: I see Best Buy no longer has the 500GB version (which I got from them for $95; they DO have the 1TB for $169, but it's backordered.


If I were sure it was the MyDVR, I would go for it. But I'm not and I don't want to loose all the programs, etc.

I guess I'll call Tivo and see if they have any suggestions, options.


----------



## Tranquility (Jan 6, 2008)

I also have the TivoHD, with the Western Digital Expander, but I&#8217;m on Verizon FIOS. A few days ago I started having a similar problem: Sometime when I turn on the TV, it is frozen, sometimes with a picture and sometimes with a blank screen. This started about the same time another problem started: When recording it sometimes stops recording sound. You play back the recording, and there is absolutely no sound. Sometimes the recording begins with sound and then after some period of time the sound stops.

Has anyone else had the problem with no sound, and is so do you also have the occasional picture lock-ups?

I have used Tivos for years, first on DirectTV and for the last 18 months on Verizon, and this is the first problem I have ever experienced.


----------



## Darkelf (Dec 30, 2008)

Joe-user21 said:


> Hi - ok, after a year running fine, as of about May 7th or so, a week ago, I started having this EXACT SAME PROBLEM. I was having a different freeze problem prior (that I've posted in a different thread), but now it's doing this: during playback, video freezes, Tivo is unrespsonsive, and it reboots after a minute. I too am wondering if there isn't a SW problem since this problem kicked on on roughly the same day for a bunch of people. Bad driver, perhaps?


I want to chime in here because I have a Tivo HD with a 500 gig WD My DVR Expander and sometime in mid May (I was out of town for 11 days) I started getting the reboot loop, freezing and pixalation problems everyone has reported.

Ran Kickstart 54 and it reported "Fail 7" for the WD drive on all tests. I've been using it for about a year but it is VERY curious that many of us are having the exact same problem at the exact same time.

WD is replacing it for free.


----------



## paully65 (Feb 20, 2002)

I had the exact same problem. I disassociated the external drive and went to weaknees and got a 750GB drive and it has been running great for over 6 months!


----------



## Yenster (May 31, 2009)

Me too...last Saturday my S3 with WD expander just starting stuttering/freezing/unresponsive. And I disconnected the WD expander (reboot) didn't change anything. Then I accidently discovered that unplugging the cable/antenna (without reboot) will get rid of the problem. Even re-attaching the WD expander (reboot) with the cable/antenna unplugged will work fine (of course without live video feed). Then re-attaching the antenna (without reboot) brings back the problem. Detaching antenna (without reboot) gets rid of the problem. Decided to replace the internal disk.

I just received and installed a 750 GB internal disk kit from Weaknees on Thursday and now no more problems (except my WD disk expander doesn't work anymore, which is a known effect).


----------



## jrs1968 (Oct 26, 2004)

Darkelf said:


> ... I've been using it for about a year but it is VERY curious that many of us are having the exact same problem at the exact same time.


Possibly count me in as having it happen at the same time as well. I am going to run the diagnostics now


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

So finally I gave up. One of the times Tivo was rebooting and saying "starting up please wait a few more minutes" that was over an hour. I rebooted and it did it again. Thus I disconnected the DVR expander and it rebooted and now it seems to work ok. 
I found a 1Tb WD greed drive for $79 at Zipzoomfly and it is on its way. I will update and hopefully recover my space. Without the expander I have 21 hrs of HD and I am using already 14hrs. 

We shall see.

Cheers

Nick


----------



## MDGSR59 (Dec 31, 2007)

The same situation here. Fine until I recieved update from tivo then it started to freeze. Everyone said that the WD esata 500 gb external hardrive went bad. 
That wasn't the case. Only started acting up after tivo download. I disconnected the expander from my tivo and the tivo worked fine. I so removed the hd from the expander and did some diagnostics on it and it turned out that the hard drive is absolutely fine. The software installed on the hard drive was corrupted some how. This only started after I received the tivo update. 
If I could find the software to reinstall on the hd it would probably work fine again with my tivo. But as I would find out WD does not offer the software to reinstall.


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

any pointers how to open the expander? I may just replace the drive in it and re connect it while I add the new internal drive.

if we got to WD and look the software for the specific model might it be ok?


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

titsataki said:


> any pointers how to open the expander? I may just replace the drive in it and re connect it while I add the new internal drive.
> 
> if we got to WD and look the software for the specific model might it be ok?


You're probably aware of this, but I want to clarify for others so they don't get the wrong idea.

You cannot replace the drive in the My DVR Expander and have it remain compatible with the "plug and play" expansion on the TivoHD. It is the drive itself (model + firmware) that is compatible, not the enclosure.

If you're looking to increase capacity on your TiVo without the My DVR Expander, then see Section V of the *Drive Upgrade FAQ*.


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

I understand it will not be plug and play.
I have a Tb drive coming so I will have the Tivo HD open so I might as well add a non supported external storage device.


----------



## GadgetVirtuoso (Sep 27, 2001)

There is no software to install, its just a hard disk. If you connect it to a PC you could format it. When you reconnect it to the TiVo, it will be formatted again when the TiVo "prepares" the drive.


----------



## HazelW (Dec 6, 2007)

I too would like some pointers on opening the expander. I have 2 of them I don't use anymore and would like to get the HDs out to use elsewhere.


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

HDD have firmware. If the firmware is corrupted the hard drive goes south.


----------



## GadgetVirtuoso (Sep 27, 2001)

The likelihood of the FW going south is quite low and if it did then it wouldn't work on PC either.


----------



## Fireaxe (Apr 26, 2002)

After reading through all of the posts in this thread, I feel very lonely.
I've had a TiVo expander drive for over six months and it will not work.

The HD TiVo finds the drive, asks to set the drive up, reboots, then asks to run the setup again. 

In settings & information the WD drive is listed and appears recognized, but it still doesn't work. 

I connected the WD eSata drive to a desktop PC and created a Windows partition. I formatted, ran diagnostics, and could find no problems. I deleted the partition and connected it to the TiVo again. Once again I get the "lather, rinse, repeat" cycle.

The drive works when connected to a desktop PC. The eSata cable works. The TiVo works (latest update). For some reason the external drive and the TiVo don't like each other.

Do I need to setup a Linux partition on the drive? 

Any ideas would be welcome.


----------



## Alan K (May 15, 2008)

I have the same problem. My Tivo HD rebooted itself all night. I finally unplugged it to get it to stop. I suspect the esata connection may be the culprit because it is pretty loose. 

Does anyone know if I can take the 500GB drive out of the expander and use it for an internal drive upgrade?


----------



## urwathrtz (Jan 18, 2008)

I really want to get an expander. I hear too many stories like these, so I won't.


----------



## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

urwathrtz said:


> I really want to get an expander. I hear too many stories like these, so I won't.


I've had one hooked up for 4 months now and so far it is working perfectly (and I keep it pretty full).


----------



## smeyer (Jun 7, 2009)

I'm just chiming in to add that I've also had this problem. TiVo HD and 500 MB Expander, about a year old. It started rebooting over and over last night. Troubleshooting through TiVo and WD support confirmed that the Expander is dead, days after the warranty expired. I'm in the process of deciding whether to just replace it or install a WeaKnees TB drive. I'm pretty disgusted with WD due to this failure and of 2 hard drives for my computer.

Opinions?


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

Yeah...my opinion of WD drives is they suck. I've never had anything but problems with them, and the whine like a baby (at least they used to...not sure about the last few years' models). But I still bought the My DVR Expander (I got a good deal at BB) to eliminate the hassle of re-pairing my CableCARDS. It took three tries for Mediacom to get the CableCARDS right. But, if and when the Expander dies, I'll likely go with an internal drive upgrade and bite the bullet with Mediacom.


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

You do not have to re-pair the cable cards with an internal drive upgrade if you do it by yourself. If you get a Weakeness upgrade yes indeed you will have to call. 

I am expecting a Tb drive tomorrow so I will upgrade the internal drive right away. 
I would love to replace the Tivo expander drive with another drive and set it up at once since I will be opening Tivo but I am still looking to input how to open the expander without destroying it.

cheers

Nick


----------



## flyacl (Jan 9, 2005)

Just wanted to add myself to the list. Exact same problem as everyone is describing. Tivo HD and 500 drive since near launch. Started freezing and rebooting the last few weeks. Not sure what I am going to do now. 

I love Tivo and have been with them for years. But the constant problems like this are really putting me off. Good luck to everyone~


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

titsataki said:


> You do not have to re-pair the cable cards with an internal drive upgrade if you do it by yourself. If you get a Weakeness upgrade yes indeed you will have to call.
> 
> I am expecting a Tb drive tomorrow so I will upgrade the internal drive right away.
> I would love to replace the Tivo expander drive with another drive and set it up at once since I will be opening Tivo but I am still looking to input how to open the expander without destroying it.
> ...


Ok I got it opened. Just wedge a small screwdriver under the rubber shield remove the shield at the edges and then it pretty much slides out. 
There is a little PC board with 3 screws to take out and 
then 4 little screws that hold the tray. 
Then four bigger screws with rubber washer that hold the drive from both sides.

I do not think this enclosure is designed to be reused. I most likely will use the E-sata cable and use a new enclosure for an external drive.

I can post a pic or two if you want me to but it is not very hard...

cheers

Nick


----------



## Alan K (May 15, 2008)

What type of drive is inside? SATA, I presume? Is there a model number?


----------



## titsataki (Dec 7, 2002)

SATA drive model number WD500AVJS.

I connected it to my Vista PC formatted it and works fine. 

Cheers

Nick


----------



## MDGSR59 (Dec 31, 2007)

blakehew said:


> What i have:
> 
> TivoHD, no modifications
> WesternDigital 500GB MyDVR Expander
> ...


Had the same expander the same cablecards and the same problem. Worked fine for about thirteen months then recieved the tivo update 11. After tivo update the expander started doing exactly the same things yours is doing. 
Everyone said that it wasn't the update that caused it and that it was the hd in the expander that had gone bad. Well I removed the expander from the tivo unit and the unit worked fine so I figured that the hd did go bad. That night I decided to check the expander hd. I removed the hd from the expander enclosure and hooked it up to my computer and did some diagnostic tests found out that the hd was fine. I reformatted it and reinstalled it in the expander enclosure, hooked it back up to my tivo and wah lah everything was working fine. thats been a couple of months now and the unit hasn't frozen or rebooted once yet. I don't know if the update caused it but I do no it wasn't the hd.
Check the hd out on a computer first. You will lose everthing on the drive but it will be worth the time if the drive is good. GOOD LUCK!


----------



## flip123 (Feb 11, 2003)

MDGSR59 said:


> did some diagnostic tests found out that the hd was fine. I reformatted it


Can you give a few more details. About two weeks ago I removed my DVR expander and all has been fine. I was thinking that just re-paring the DVR expander with the Tivo might work, but if you had success I would like to replicate what you did.

How did you format? NTFS, FAT, FAT32, xfs?

Thanks,
Phil


----------



## flyacl (Jan 9, 2005)

As a quick follow up for anyone interested, I removed the expander and have not had a single problem since. Now my only decision is to get a new 1TB expander or just upgrade the internal one. Good luck to all~


----------



## worksopian (Oct 25, 2007)

TivoHD
WD 500Gb Expander
I have similar issues, when I turn on the TV the screen is frozen, if I change channel everything is fine. Also noticed that on the frozen channel I can "rewind" the show for about 10 - 15 minutes and watch up to the freeze. (Show was not set to record). Sounds like Tivo software to me especially considering comments on expander drive testing OK.


----------



## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

worksopian said:


> TivoHD
> WD 500Gb Expander
> I have similar issues, when I turn on the TV the screen is frozen, if I change channel everything is fine. Also noticed that on the frozen channel I can "rewind" the show for about 10 - 15 minutes and watch up to the freeze. (Show was not set to record). Sounds like Tivo software to me especially considering comments on expander drive testing OK.


The reports on this forum are virtually unanimous -- removing the My DVR Expander eliminates the issues.

Reading these forums, it is obvious that a significant percentage of customers with the 500GB My DVR Expander start to experience problems after 10-14 months. The drive almost never reports no errors with TiVo's own SMART tests, but the problems do not go away until the 500GB My DVR Expander is removed.

It's still not clear whether the issue is a hardware or software issue that develops after prolonged use (i.e. around a year) with the 500GB My DVR Expander. Google's published reports show that such SMART tests are *not* a reliable indicator of drive problems. In *some* cases, members on this forum confirmed a faulty or failing power supply as the culprit, and were able to restore normal (reliable) operation with a replacement power supply from Western Digital. In other cases, a replacement power supply made no difference.

I have not seen any problems reported with the 1TB My DVR Expander, but it was only released a few months ago. Ten months from now, people could be reporting the same problems with that unit. Or the problems could be specific to the 500GB version; we don't know.

If you are out-of-warranty on the 500GB My DVR Expander, I would suggest you follow the instructions in *Section V* of the *Drive Upgrade FAQ* to upgrade to TiVo's hard drive to 1TB (or more) for $90-$100.


----------



## flip123 (Feb 11, 2003)

bkdtv:

I agree with what you say. I removed my DVR Expander about 3 weeks ago and have had no problems. I ordered my new 1TB hard drive and last night was following *Section V* of the Drive Upgrade FAQ but quickly ran into problems. Unlike with past computers where I had IDE cables all over the place, no SATA cable came with the new drive and I had no extra ones in the house.

It might be nice to add to *Section V* a prerequisite to make sure you already have the required cables.

Phil


----------



## civicracer24 (Oct 22, 2004)

I too just had this issue a week and a half ago... TiVo HD Rebooting and sticking on the "Almost There" screen... removed the DVR Expander from the loop and everything is working perfectly now... except for the lack of storage AND all my content that got deleted in the divorce.

Stupid me for misplacing my receipt... I have to dig around my office for it... I still have the box for the WD MYDVR, but no receipt.

This irritates me because my Series 2 gave up on me after a software update pushed from TiVo... then 8 months later it started working again... now it's obsolete with DTV.

Now my DVR Exp. is gone on me... perhaps after a pushed SW update from TiVo... not sure.

Not sure what to do now... maybe a TiVo HD-XL... I don't want to deal with external drives anymore.


----------



## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

I think it's clear that there is some sort of design problem with the 500 GByte MyDVR probably related to heat damage after a year or more running 24x7 in an enclosed space. Who knows whether the TByte MyDVR is also going to have the same problems.

What might be very interesting is if some of you who are now stuck with 500 GByte paperweights would be willing to break apart the enclosure (the one I looked at seemed pretty solid and might have to be destroyed to open it) and see if the resulting internal disk is bad, or whether it's the bridge hardware on the enclosure that is going bad.


----------



## Jack D (Nov 3, 2006)

I don't know. I just read through this thread and my impression was that people who have checked the drives indicate that there is no problem with them. Some posts here seem to indicate problems occurred after the update to Tivo FW v11. 

The other point is that we do not know what percentage of TIVO users with 500GB expanders have had problems. The only posts are from some people who have had problems.

Still, I have to say, it makes me wonder. I have just installed a TIVO HD with a 1 TB expander and it's working ok. I have an S3 and I have a Seagate FAP drive (which is not "supported" by TIVO) on there that has worked fine for probably three years. I was thinking of replacing it with a 1 TB expander but now I'm starting to get nervous.


----------



## mchief (Sep 10, 2005)

My my 18mo old Expander died I tore it apart and put the drive in my Vista PC. Formatted and worked well for 2 days and then Windows started reporting problems with the drive. I ran WD tests and none would complete, the drive was toast.


----------



## Bruce24 (Jan 8, 2003)

I just started having my Tivo HD with a 500GB MYDVR expander start to freeze for a few seconds and then reboot this week. Based what people have said in the thread I will remove my expander. fwiw: I got the both of them in Feb 2008. 

I know I will lose all my shows, but before I do it I wanted to know if I also lose the setup and season passes. 

Thanks,

-Bruce


----------



## copwriter (Aug 30, 2005)

I had a 500 GB DVR Expander, purchased November 2007. I was getting recordings dropped altogether, freeze-ups, reboots, etc. After seeing similar reports here attributed to the WD DVR Expander, I removed it (losing all of my recordings), and the problems cleared up immediately. I have since purchased a 1 TB DVR Expander, and so far have had no problems. 

The original 500 GB expander cost $245 from Best Buy. The replacement 1 GB expander was $125 from Amazon.com. I checked with WD, and the warranty on the original model had expired 1 Dec 2008, but I had made the purchase with an American Express card that extends the warranty for up to a year. I filed a claim with AMEX, and was reimbursed 100&#37; for the original drive. I think this is the second time I have filed such a claim. That benefit is well worth whatever cost it incurs, IMHO.


----------



## SteveHC1 (Dec 12, 2008)

I recently began having problems with my TiVo constantly (yet unpredictably) re-booting, after addin g a 1TB expander. Naturally, thought it might have something to do with the expander. Tried EVERYTHING imaginable to isolate the problem.

Result: It was my ETHERNET cable! Worked perfectly fine with PC connections, but for some reason gave TiVo issues! Replaced the ethernet cable connecting my TiVo to my router and no problems ever since.

Go figure...


----------

